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.

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The Cloud Confines.

  • 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.”
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  • 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.”
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  • The sky leans dumb on the sea,
  • 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?

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Note: blank page
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Copyright: © Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library