he, who for thy soul
Fledges his shaft: to the august control
Of thy skilled hand his quivered store he gave:
But if thy lips' loud cry leap to his smart,
The inspired record shall pierce thy brother's heart.

This is not meant to convey the same idea as Shelley's "learn in
suffering," etc., but merely that a poem must move the writer in its
composition if it is to move the reader.

With the following _The House of Life_ is made to close:

When vain desire at last and vain regret
Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,
What shall assuage the unforgotten pain
And teach the unforgetful to forget?

Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet,--
Or may the soul at once in a green plain
Stoop through the spray of some sweet life-fountain,
And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet?

Ah! when the wan soul in that golden air
Between the scriptured petals softly blown
Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown,--
Ah! let none other alien spell soe'er
But only the one Hope's one name be there,--
Not less nor more, but even that word alone.

A writer must needs be loath to part from this section of Rossett's work
without naming some few sonnets that seem to be in all respects on a
level with those to which attention has been drawn. Of such, perhaps,
the most conspicuous are:--_A Day of Love; Mid-Rapture; Her Gifts; The
Dark Glass; True Woman; Without Her; Known in Vain; The Heart of
the Night; The Landmark; Stillborn Love; Lost Days_. But it would be
difficult to formulate a critical opinion in support of the superiority
of almost any of these' sonnets over the others,--so balanced is their
merit, so equal their appeal to the imagination and heart. Indeed, it
were scarcely rash to say that in the language (outside Shakspeare)
there exists no single body of sonnets characterised by such sustained
excellence of vision and presentment. It must have been strange enough
if the all but unexampled ardour and constancy with which Rossetti
pursued the art of the sonnet-writer had not resulted in absolute
mastery.

In 1850 _The Germ_ was started under the editorship of Mr. William
Michael Rossetti, and to the four issues, which were all that were
published of this monthly magazine (designed to advocate the views of
the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood), Rossetti contributed certain of
his early poems--_The Blessed Damozel_ a