Three Poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Song Cycle by John Hall (b. 1943)

?. Sudden light  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
         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 turned 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?

Text Authorship:

  • by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882), "Sudden light", written 1853/4, from Poems. A New Edition, first published 1881

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Note: first published in 1863, revised in 1870 and 1881. In the 1870 version of the poem (from Poems: an Offering to Lancashire), the final stanza was as follows:
         Then, now, -- perchance again! . . . .
              O round mine eyes your tresses shake!
          Shall we not lie as we have lain
              Thus for Love's sake,
    And sleep, and wake, yet never break the chain?

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

?. Lovesight  [sung text not yet checked]

Language: English 
When do I see thee most, beloved one?
When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
The worship of that Love through thee made known?

Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone)
Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

O love - my love! if I no more should see Thyself,
nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
The groundwhirl of the perished leaves of Hope
The wind of Death's imperishable wing?

Text Authorship:

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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Total word count: 206