Dante Gabriel Rossetti Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

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.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart:
And as the last slow sudden drops are shed
From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,
So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
I am not as these are, the poet saith
In youth's pride, and the painter, among men
At bay, where never pencil comes nor pem

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
And Love, our light at night and shade at noon,
Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away
All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
We two will lie i' the shadow of
That living mystic tree
Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be,
While every leaf that His plumes touch
Saith His Name audibly.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The sun was gone now; the curl'd moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
If the light is
It is because God said 'Let there be light.'

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot, somehow,—
Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
'We two,' she said, 'will seek the groves
Where the lady Mary is,
With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret and Rosalys.'

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Imagining the reaction of the girls upon seeing their depiction in Turner's painting "Girls Surprised while Bathing":
I should think devilish surprised to see what Turner has made of them.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
When all desire at last and all regret
Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,
What shall assuage the unforgotten pain
And teach the unforgetful to forget?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Give honour unto Luke Evangelist;
For he it was (the aged legends say)
Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory;
One thing then learned remains to me —
The woodspurge has a cup of three.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Was it a friend or foe that spread these lies?
Nay, who but infants question in such wise,
'T was one of my most intimate enemies.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirr'd continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
This sunlight shames November where he grieves
In dead red leaves, and will not let him shun
The day, though bough with bough be overrun.
But with a blessing every glade receives
High salutation.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: So this winged hour is dropt to us from above. Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, This close-companioned inarticulate hour When twofold silence was the song of love.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
I plucked a honeysuckle where The hedge on high is quick with thorn, And climbing for the prize, was torn, And fouled my feet in quag-water; And by the thorns and by the wind The blossom that I took was thinn'd, And yet I found it sweet and fair.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
From the fix'd place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Still we say as we go,—
"Strange to think by the way
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Unto the man of yearning thought
And aspiration, to do nought
Is in itself almost an act.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I
Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath
Even at this moment haply quickeneth
The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh
Though screen'd and hid, shall walk the daylight here.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Each hour until we meet is as a bird
That wings from far his gradual way along
The rustling covert of my soul.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Now kiss, and think that there are really those,
My own high-bosom'd beauty, who increase
Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way!
Through many years they toil; then on a day
They die not, — for their life was death, — but cease;
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Around her, lovers, newly met
'Mid deathless love's acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remember'd names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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 light around the shore.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Eat thou and drink; tomorrow thou shalt die.
Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold
Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I
May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high,
Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.
We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,
Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti