“Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are.”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life
Heart's Compass.
The House of Life (1870—1881)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, né le 12 mai 1828 à Londres et mort le 10 avril 1882 à Birchington-on-Sea est un peintre, poète, traducteur et écrivain britannique.
Il fonda le préraphaélisme en 1848 avec William Holman Hunt et John Everett Millais et fut, plus tard, l’inspiration principale d’une seconde génération d’artistes et écrivains influencés par ce mouvement dont William Morris et Edward Burne-Jones. Son travail influença non seulement le Symbolisme européen et le mouvement esthétique. Le travail de Rossetti se caractérise par la sensualité de ses œuvres et la reprise de thèmes médiévaux. Son activité poétique fut au départ influencée par le travail de John Keats. Plus tard, ses poèmes se démarquèrent par la complexe liaison entre pensées et sentiments, tel qu’on peut particulièrement le voir dans son sonnet The House of Life . La poésie et les images sont étroitement liées dans le travail de Rossetti. Il écrit fréquemment des sonnets pour accompagner ses peintures, et illustre plusieurs poèmes comme ce fut le cas pour Goblin Market, écrit par sa sœur Christina Rossetti. La vie privée de l'artiste fut profondément liée à son œuvre, surtout dans ses relations avec ses modèles et muses Elizabeth Siddal et Jane Burden. Wikipedia

“Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are.”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life
Heart's Compass.
The House of Life (1870—1881)
The Choice
Contexte: Nay, come up hither. From this wave-wash'd mound
Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;
Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
Miles and miles distant though the last line be,
And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.
“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life
A Superscription. Compare: "My name is might have been; my name is never was; my name's forgotten", Courtney Love (with Hole), "Celebrity Skin".
Source: The House of Life (1870—1881)
The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life
Newborn Death.
The House of Life (1870—1881)
The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)
The Choice
The Cloud Confines, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
from Not As These in The House of Life 1870 kindle ebook ASIN B0082R81E8
The King's Tragedy, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“If the light is
It is because God said 'Let there be light.”
At Sunrise, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
Memorial from the Soul's eternity
To one dead deathless hour.”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life
Introductory Sonnet.
The House of Life (1870—1881)
Stanza 7. <br class="br"> The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life
Heart's Haven.
The House of Life (1870—1881)
“Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die”
The Choice
Contexte: Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die
Outstretch'd in the sun's warmth upon the shore,
Thou say'st: "Man's measur'd path is all gone o'er:
Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh,
Man clomb until he touch'd the truth; and I,
Even I, am he whom it was destin'd for."
How should this be? Art thou then so much more
Than they who sow'd, that thou shouldst reap thereby?
Fragment, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The Choice
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life
Winged Hours.
The House of Life (1870—1881)
The Sea-Limits, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "I send thee a shell from the ocean-beach; But listen thou well, for my shell hath speech. Hold to thine ear / And plain thou'lt hear / Tales of ships", Charles Henry Webb, With a Nantucket Shell; The hollow sea-shell, which for years hath stood / On dusty shelves, when held against the ear / Proclaims its stormy parent, and we hear / The faint, far murmur of the breaking flood. / We hear the sea. The Sea? It is the blood / In our own veins, impetuous and near", Eugene Lee-Hamilton, Sonnet. Sea-shell Murmurs'.
Sudden Light http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/roset03.html#1, st. 1 (1881).
Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life
Gracious Moonlight.
The House of Life (1870—1881)
The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)
“Thou fill'st from the wingèd chalice of the soul
Thy lamp, O Memory, fire-wingèd to its goal.”
Mnemosyne, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Stanza 1. <br class="br"> The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)
The Blessed Damozel http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/715.html (1850)
The Ballad of Dead Ladies http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/roset03.html#13, st. 1 (1870).