You know that startled recognition when you click through to a poem because you like the title and go, Oh, right, that one! — or has that never happened to you? It sometimes happens to me when I’m looking for poems to post on Thursdays. I’m like, “I’m sure I’ve read poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but hmm, what were they?”
Well, one of them was this poem — except I only remember the first stanza. I think perhaps I saw just this stanza quoted somewhere, or maybe it was used as an epigraph in some novel, I don’t know. It leaped off the page at me, though.
Sudden Light
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?
*****
So, how about finding another poem by Rossetti. Let me see. All right, here’s one. I’m not sure I have ever in my life seen a poem with such dedicated alliteration and repetition. I do like it. It’s a little long, but broken up into easy-to-read stanzas. I sort of feel this one would be fun to read with a child. It’s not that it’s childish. It’s that the alliteration and repetition might be fun for children.
Chimes
I.
HONEY-FLOWERS to the honey-comb,
And the honey-bee’s from home.
A honey-comb and a honey-flower,
And the bee shall have his hour.
A honeyed heart for the honey-comb,
And the humming bee flies home.
A heavy heart in the honey-flower,
And the bee has had his hour.
II.
A honey-cell’s in the honeysuckle,
And the honey-bee knows it well.
The honey-comb has a heart of honey,
And the humming bee’s so bonny.
A honey-flower’s the honeysuckle,
And the bee’s in the honey-bell.
The honeysuckle is sucked of honey,
And the bee is heavy and bonny.
III.
Brown shell first for the butterfly,
And a bright wing by and by.
Butterfly, good-bye to your shell,
And, bright wings, speed you well.
Bright lamplight for the butterfly
And a burnt wing by and by.
Butterfly, alas for your shell,
And, bright wings, fare you well.
IV.
Lost love-labour and lullaby,
And lowly let love lie.
Lost love-morrow and love fellow
And love’s life lying low.
Lovelorn labour and life laid by,
And lowly let love lie.
Late love-longing and life-sorrow
And love’s life lying low.
V.
Beauty’s body and benison
With a bosom-flower new-blown.
Bitter beauty and blessing bann’d
With a breast to burn and brand.
Beauty’s bower in the dust o’erblown
With a bare white breast of bone.
Barren beauty and bower of sand
With a blast on either hand.
VI.
Buried bars in the breakwater
And bubble of the brimming weir.
Body’s blood in the breakwater
And a buried body’s bier.
Buried bones in the breakwater
And bubble of the brawling weir.
Bitter tears in the breakwater
And a breaking heart to bear.
VII.
Hollow heaven and the hurricane
And hurry of the heavy rain.
Hurried clouds in the hollow heaven
And a heavy rain hard-driven.
The heavy rain it hurries amain
And heaven and the hurricane.
Hurrying wind o’er the heaven’s hollow
And the heavy rain to follow.
Please Feel Free to Share:
The second one is unexpectedly lovely.
His poetry sounds so calm.
I don’t know if links can be included? I’ll try it.
In contrast, here’s a drawing he did of his sister Christina’s reaction to a review of her poems: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_Christina_Rossetti_in_a_Tantrum.jpg
Evelyn,
That is SUCH a sibling picture, for sure.
I greatly enjoyed both of those poems. The second would indeed be fun to read aloud, kind of like Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Swing, which always evokes in me a pleasant sensation of actually swinging.
Delightful cartoon, Evelyn! Made me laugh!