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Home  »  Poetica Erotica  »  Sonnet LVII. True Woman: II. Her Love

T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.

Sonnet LVII. True Woman: II. Her Love

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)
 
(From The House of Life, 1881)

SHE loves him; for her infinite soul is Love,
  And he her lodestar. Passion in her is
  A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss
Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet move
That glass, a stranger’s amorous flame to prove,        5
  And it shall turn, by instant contraries,
  Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his
For whom it burns, clings close i’ the heart’s alcove.
 
Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast
  And circling arms, she welcomes all command        10
  Of love,—her soul to answering ardours fann’d:
Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest,
Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest
  The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand?