Two Poems: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
“Autumn Song” is a melancholy Victorian poem written by Dante Gabriel Rossetti on September 4, 1848, and originally titled “The Fall of the Leaf”. The the poem reflects the Pre-Raphaelite poet’s fascination with beauty, mortality, and nature. Its recurring refrain captures the season’s quiet sadness and the soul’s longing for rest.
“Aspecta Medusa” is a well-known sonnet and planned artwork by the Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Rossetti wrote the short poem in 1865 to accompany a planned-but-unfinished painting. Aspecta Medusa draws on Greek mythology, recounting how Andromeda, saved by Perseus, longs to see Medusa’s deadly head. The poem reflects the Victorian poet’s fascination with beauty, danger, and mortality. Its moral warns against confronting forbidden truths directly, suggesting that their shadows may be safer than their reality.
Autumn Song
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
Also Read: Two Poems – Emily Dickinson
Aspecta Medusa (for a Drawing)
Andromeda, by Perseus sav’d and wed,
Hanker’d each day to see the Gorgon’s head:
Till o’er a fount he held it, bade her lean,
And mirror’d in the wave was safely seen
That death she liv’d by.
Let not thine eyes know
Any forbidden thing itself, although
It once should save as well as kill: but be
Its shadow upon life enough for thee.
Image Courtesy: Wikimwdia Commons, Stockvault, Wikimedia Commons
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) was an English poet, painter, and illustrator, and a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, renowned for romantic poetry and vivid art.
