Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/146

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118
THE LOWEST ROOM.
While I? I sat alone and watched;
My lot in life, to live alone
In mine own world of interests,
  Much felt but little shown.

Not to be first: how hard to learn
That lifelong lesson of the past;
Line graven on line and stroke on stroke;
  But, thank God, learned at last

So now in patience I possess
My soul year after tedious year,
Content to take the lowest place,
  The place assigned me here.

Yet sometimes, when I feel my strength
Most weak, and life most burdensome,
I lift mine eyes up to the hills
  From whence my help shall come:

Yea, sometimes still I lift my heart
To the Archangelic trumpet-burst,
When all deep secrets shall be shown,
  And many last be first.