The Blessed Damozel

The memory of his dead wife and of all that he had lost in her, and of all the negligences and omissions with which, rightly or wrongly, he reproached himself, looking back upon their brief married life.

Of her, prophetically, and of himself, left desolate, he had written twenty years before in what was to prove one of his greatest poems, when he told how The blessed damozel leaned out from the gold bar of heaven.

Her blue grave eyes were deeper much than a deep water even.

She had three lilies in her hand, and the stars in her hair were seven.

Her gaze still strove in that steep gulf to pierce the swarm.

And then she spake as when the stars sang in their spheres.

The Blessed Damozel And of her and of himself again he had written prophetically in the mystic and mysterious tale of Hand and Soul.

For she, whether as maid or wife, whether living or dead, had given him inspiration and aspiration, even such as the veiled woman who was his very soul brought to Chiaro del Ermo the painter.

Recording by Leonard Wilson.

The Blessed Damozel by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

The Blessed Damozel leaned out From the gold bar of heaven; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even; She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, No wrought flowers did adorn; But a white rose of Mary's gift, For service meetly worn; Her hair, that lay along her back, Was yellow like ripe corn.

Her seemed she scarce had been a day One of God's choristers; The wonder was not yet quite gone From that still look of hers: Albeit to them she left her day Had counted as ten years.

But soon their path was vague in distant spheres; and then she cast her arms along the golden barriers, and laid her face between her hands, and wept.

I heard her tears.

End of The Blessed Damozel by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.