Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

714. The Blessèd Damozel

THE BLESSÈD Damozel lean’d out

From the gold bar of Heaven:

Her blue grave eyes were deeper much

Than a deep water, even.

She had three lilies in her hand,

And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,

No wrought flowers did adorn,

But a white rose of Mary’s gift

On the neck meetly worn;

And her hair, lying down her back,

Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseem’d she scarce had been a day

One of God’s choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone

From that still look of hers;

Albeit, to them she left, her day

Had counted as ten years.

(To one it is ten years of years:

… Yet now, here in this place,

Surely she lean’d o’er me,—her hair

Fell all about my face…

Nothing: the Autumn-fall of leaves.

The whole year sets apace.)

It was the terrace of God’s house

That she was standing on,—

By God built over the sheer depth

In which Space is begun;

So high, that looking downward thence,

She scarce could see the sun.

It lies from Heaven across the flood

Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night

With flame and darkness ridge

The void, as low as where this earth

Spins like a fretful midge.

But in those tracts, with her, it was

The peace of utter light

And silence. For no breeze may stir

Along the steady flight

Of seraphim; no echo there,

Beyond all depth or height.

Heard hardly, some of her new friends,

Playing at holy games,

Spake, gentle-mouth’d, among themselves,

Their virginal chaste names;

And the souls, mounting up to God,

Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bow’d herself, and stoop’d

Into the vast waste calm;

Till her bosom’s pressure must have made

The bar she lean’d on warm,

And the lilies lay as if asleep

Along her bended arm.

From the fixt lull of Heaven, she saw

Time, like a pulse, shake fierce

Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove,

In that steep gulf, to pierce

The swarm; and then she spoke, as when

The stars sang in their spheres.

‘I wish that he were come to me,

For he will come,’ she said.

‘Have I not pray’d in solemn Heaven?

On earth, has he not pray’d?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?

And shall I feel afraid?

‘When round his head the aureole clings,

And he is clothed in white,

I’ll take his hand, and go with him

To the deep wells of light,

And we will step down as to a stream

And bathe there in God’s sight.

‘We two will stand beside that shrine,

Occult, withheld, untrod,

Whose lamps tremble continually

With prayer sent up to God;

And where each need, reveal’d, expects

Its patient period.

‘We two will lie i’ the shadow of

That living mystic tree

Within whose secret growth the Dove

Sometimes is felt to be,

While every leaf that His plumes touch

Saith His name audibly.

‘And I myself will teach to him,—

I myself, lying so,—

The songs I sing here; which his mouth

Shall pause in, hush’d and slow,

Finding some knowledge at each pause,

And some new thing to know.’

(Alas! to her wise simple mind

These things were all but known

Before: they trembled on her sense,—

Her voice had caught their tone.

Alas for lonely Heaven! Alas

For life wrung out alone!

Alas, and though the end were reach’d?…

Was thy part understood

Or borne in trust? And for her sake

Shall this too be found good?—

May the close lips that knew not prayer

Praise ever, though they would?)

‘We two,’ she said, ‘will seek the groves

Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names

Are five sweet symphonies:—

Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,

Margaret and Rosalys.

‘Circle-wise sit they, with bound locks

And bosoms coverèd;

Into the fine cloth, white like flame,

Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them

Who are just born, being dead.

‘He shall fear, haply, and be dumb.

Then I will lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abash’d or weak:

And the dear Mother will approve

My pride, and let me speak.

‘Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,

To Him round whom all souls

Kneel—the unnumber’d solemn heads

Bow’d with their aureoles:

And Angels, meeting us, shall sing

To their citherns and citoles.

‘There will I ask of Christ the Lord

Thus much for him and me:—

To have more blessing than on earth

In nowise; but to be

As then we were,—being as then

At peace. Yea, verily.

‘Yea, verily; when he is come

We will do thus and thus:

Till this my vigil seem quite strange

And almost fabulous;

We two will live at once, one life;

And peace shall be with us.’

She gazed, and listen’d, and then said,

Less sad of speech than mild,—

‘All this is when he comes.’ She ceased:

The light thrill’d past her, fill’d

With Angels, in strong level lapse.

Her eyes pray’d, and she smiled.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their flight

Was vague ’mid the poised spheres.

And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,

And wept. (I heard her tears.)