Afar away the light that brings cold cheer
Unto this wall, - one instant and no more
Admitted at my distant palace-door
Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.
Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey
That chills me: and afar how far away,
The nights that shall become the days that were.

Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing
Strange ways in thought, and listenfor a sign:
And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,
O, Whose sounds mine inner sense in fain to bring,
Continually together murmuring) --
'Woe me for thee, unhappy Proserpine'.
-- D. G. Rossetti

Under the arch of life, where love and death,
    Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
    Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
I drew it in as simply as my breath.

Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath
    The sky and sea bend on thee, — which can draw,
    By sea or sky or woman, to one law,
The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise
    Thy voice and hand shake still, — long known to thee
        By flying hair and fluttering hem, — the beat
        Following her daily of thy heart and feet,
    How passionately and irretrievably,
In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

-- D. G. Rossetti

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
    (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve.)
    That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
And still her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
    And, subtly of herself contemplative,
    Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
    Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
    Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
    Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent,
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

-- D. G. Rossetti