Sonnet VI: The Kiss

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828 (London) – 1882 (Birchington-on-Sea)



What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude
Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.
I was a child beneath her touch,—a man
When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,—
A spirit when her spirit looked through me,—
A god when all our life-breath met to fan
Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
Fire within fire, desire in deity.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

34 sec read
110

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAABBACDDCCD
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 600
Words 111
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. more…

All Dante Gabriel Rossetti poems | Dante Gabriel Rossetti Books

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