The House of Life: 36. Life-in-Love

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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.

© Dante Gabriel Rossetti