"the housemates sit / Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed / In a tumultuous privacy of storm."

Suddenly, it's a Monday that's a Poetry Monday. If feels like this has happened before …


Sudden Light, Dante Rossetti

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,—
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turn'd so,
Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?


Dante was, by the way, the oldest brother of Christina Rossetti, and a formidable poet (as well as original artist) in his own right.

---L.

Subject quote from "The Snow-Storm," Ralph Emerson.