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THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 27. HEART'S COMPASS by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

Poet Analysis

First Line: SOMETIMES THOU SEEM'ST NOT AS THYSELF ALONE
Last Line: STAKES WITH A SMILE THE WORLD AGAINST THY HEART.
Subject(s): LOVE;

SOMETIMES thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are;
A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
Being of its furthest fires oracular;--
The evident heart of all life sown and mown.

Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love?
Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart
All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;
Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;
And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,
Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.



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