Xxxvi Life-in-love

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

     Not in thy body is thy life at all
         But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes;
         Through these she yields thee life that vivifies
     What else were sorrow's servant and death's thrall.
     Look on thyself without her, and recall
         The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise
         That liv'd but in a dead-drawn breath of sighs
     O'er vanish'd hours and hours eventual.

     Even so much life hath the poor tress of hair
       Which, stor'd apart, is all love hath to show
       For heart-beats and for fire-heats long ago;
   Even so much life endures unknown, even where,
       'Mid change the changeless night environeth,
       Lies all that golden hair undimm'd in death.

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