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Home  »  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895  »  A Little While

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828–82

A Little While

RossetDG

A LITTLE while a little love

The hour yet bears for thee and me

Who have not drawn the veil to see

If still our heaven be lit above

Thou merely, at the day’s last sigh,

Hast felt thy soul prolong the tone;

And I have heard the night-wind cry

And deem’d its speech mine own.

A little while a little love

The scattering autumn hoards for us

Whose bower is not yet ruinous

Nor quite unleav’d our songless grove.

Only across the shaken boughs

We hear the flood-tides seek the sea,

And deep in both our hearts they rouse

One wail for thee and me.

A little while a little love

May yet be ours who have not said

The word it makes our eyes afraid

To know that each is thinking of.

Not yet the end: be our lips dumb

In smiles a little season yet:

I ’ll tell thee, when the end is come,

How we may best forget.