The Day-Dream
The Day-Dream
(for a picture)
The thronged boughs of the shadowy sycamore
Still bear young leaflets half the summer through ;
From when the robin ‘gainst the unhidden blue
Perched dark, till now, deep in the leafy core,
The embowered throstle’s urgent wood-notes soar
Through summer silence. Still the leaves come new ;
Yet never rosy-sheathed as those which drew
Their spiral tongues from spring-buds heretofore.
Within the branching shade of Reverie
Dreams even may spring till autumn : yet none be
Like woman’s budding day-dream spirit-fann’d.
Lo! tow’rd deep skies, not deeper than her look,
She dreams ; till now on her forgotten book
Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand.
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I am so captivated by the wedding of poetry and Pre-Raphaelite art. It is a whole world to me… I’ve read that on his honeymoon with Lizzie, Dante developed his doppelganger motif(“double goer” in German, referring to the apparition of a living person) in his painting “How They Met Themselves”.
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s118.r-1.rap.html
I also enjoy the overflowing lyricism of “Severed Selves”.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Severed Selves
Sonnet XL from “The House of Life: A Sonnet Sequence”
Two separate divided silences,
Which, brought together, would find loving voice;
Two glances which together would rejoice
In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees;
Two hands apart whose touch alone gives ease;
Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame,
Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same;
Two souls, the shore wave-mocked of sundering seas:-
Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast
Indeed one hour again, when on this stream
Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam? –
An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,–
Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last,
Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream.
Referring to it as a wedding is appropriate. I think, especially in Rossetti’s case, that there is a marriage of sorts in his poetic works and his art work. He used both as partners, reflecting the work.