Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Gather a shell from the strewn beach And listen at its lips: they sigh The same desire and mystery, The echo of the whole sea's speech.

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

If God in his wisdom have brought close The day when I must die, That day by water or fire or air My feet shall fall in the destined snare Wherever my road may lie.

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.

Tell me now in what hidden way is Lady Flora the lovely Roman? Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais, Neither of them the fairer woman? Where is Echo, beheld of no man, Only heard on river and mere—

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.

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