Rossetti walked his sorrow to a field, Lay in the grass, and watched the wood-spurge flower. The three-cupped wood-spurge: all that earth would yield Rossetti to remember of that hour. He lay with grief, as others too have lain Who must remember strangely other things. Things that still keep the contours of their pain, Whose colors cling longer than sorrow clings. The tears of things that have not any words, Deeper than music, stronger than the sea, And sadder than the flight of homing birds: Remembered things, outlasting memory. The shapes of suffering hold, when you and I And sorrow, and this cause for sorrow, die. |