THE LOVE-MOON

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

‘ When that dead face, bowered in the furthest years,

Which once was all the life years held for thee,

Can now scarce bide the tides of memory

Cast on thy soul a little spray of tears,—

How canst thou gaze into these eyes of hers

Whom now thy heart delights in, and not see

Within each orb Love's philtred euphrasy

Make them of buried troth remembrancers?’

‘ Nay, pitiful Love, nay, loving Pity! Well

Thou knowest that in these twain I have confess'd

Two very voices of thy summoning bell.

Nay, Master, shall not Death make manifest

In these the culminant changes which approve

The love-moon that must light my soul to Love?’