Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/449

 All Italy before us we plunged down
  St. Gothard, garden of forget-me-not:
  Yet why should such a flower choose such a spot?
Could we forget that way which once we went
 Though not one flower had bloomed to weave its rown?

23.

Beyond the seas we know, stretch seas unknown
 Blue and bright-coloured for our dim and green;
 Beyond the lands we see, stretch lands unseen
With many-tinted tangle overgrown;
And icebound seas there are like seas of stone,
 Serenely stormless as death lies serene;
 And lifeless tracts of sand, which intervene
Betwixt the lands where living flowers are blown.
This dead and living world befits our case
 Who live and die: we live in wearied hope,
We die in hope not dead; we run a race
To-day, and find no present halting-place;
 All things we see lie far within our scope,
And still we peer beyond with craving face.

24.

The wise do send their hearts before them to
 Dear blessed Heaven, despite the veil between;