Thou Ghost, I said, and is thy name To-day?
Yesterday's son, with such an abject brow!
And can To-morrow be more pale than thou?
While yet I spoke, the silence answered: Yea,
Henceforth our issue is all grieved and grey,
And each beforehand makes such poor avow
As of old leaves beneath the budding bough
Or night-drift that the sundawn shreds away.
Then cried I: Mother of many malisons,
O Earth, receive me to thy dusty bed!
But therewithal the tremulous silence said:
Lo! Love yet bids thy lady greet thee once:
Yea, twice,whereby thy life is still the sun's;
And thrice,whereby the shadow of death is dead.
Sonnet XXXVIII: The Morrow's Message
written byDante Gabriel Rossetti
© Dante Gabriel Rossetti