Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription
Document Title: The Cloud Confines
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1880
Scribe: DGR
The
full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
page: [1]
- The day is dark and the night
- To him that would search their heart;
- No lips of cloud that will part
- Nor morning song in the light:
- Only, gazing alone,
- To him wild shadows are shown,
- Deep under deep unknown
- And height above unknown height:
- Still we say as we go,—
-
10 “Strange to think by the way,
- Whatever there is to know,
- That shall we know one day.”
- The Past is over and fled;
- Named new, we name it the old;
- Thereof some tale hath been told,
- But no word comes from the dead.
- Whether at all they be,
- Or whether as bond or free,
- Or whether they too were we,
-
20Or by what spill they have sped.
- Still we say as we go,—
- “Strange to think by the way,
- Whatever there is to know,
- That shall we know one day.”
page: [2]
- What of the heart of hate
- That beats in thy breast, O Time?—
- Red strife from the furthest prime,
- And anguish of fierce debate;
- War that shatters her slain,
-
30 And
p
Peace that grinds them as grain,
- And eyes fixed ever in vain
- On the pitiless eyes of Fate.
- Still we say as we go,—
- “Strange to think by the way,
- Whatever there is to know,
- That shall we know one day.”
- What of the heart of love
- That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?—
- Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban
-
40Of fangs that mock them above;
- Thy bells prolonged unto knells,
- Thy hope that a breath dispels,
- Thy bitter forlorn farewells
- And the empty echoes thereof?
- Still we say as we go,—
- “Strange to think by the way,
- Whatever there is to know,
- That shall we know one day.”
page: [3]
- The sky leans dumb on the sea,
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50 Aweary with all its wings;
- And oh! the song the sea sings
- Is dark everlastingly.
- Our past is clean forgot,
- Our present is and is not,
- Our future's a sealed seedplot,
- And what betwixt them are we?
- What words to say as we go?
-
“I What thoughts to think by the way,
- What truth may there be to know,
-
60 And shall we know it one day?
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Copyright: © Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library