Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

For Spring By Sandro Botticelli

WHAT masque of what old wind-withered New-Year
Honours this Lady? Flora, wanton-eyed
For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and pied:
Aurora, Zephyrus, with mutual cheer
Of clasp and kiss: the Graces circling near,
'Neath bower-linked arch of white arms glorified:
And with those feathered feet which hovering glide
O'er Spring's brief bloom, Hermes the harbinger.
Birth-bare, not death-bare yet, the young stems stand
This Lady's temple-columns: o'er her head
Love wings his shaft. What mystery here is read
Of homage or of hope? But how command
Dead Springs to answer? And how question here
These mummers of that wind-withered New-Year? 

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 99. Newborn Death - 1
2. The House of Life. Sonnet 26. Mid-Rapture
3. The House of Life. Sonnet 14. Youth's Spring-Tribute
4. The House of Life. Sonnet 31. Her Gifts
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 38. The Morrow's Message

Print

1861 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version