Autumn+Song


 * Autumn Song**
 * Dante Gabriel Rossetti**

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?

And how the swift beat of the brain Falters because it is in vain, In Autumn at the fall of the leaf 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?

Languid - slow and relaxed Vain - useless Sheaf - a bundle of grain stalks laid lengthwise and tied together after reaping Comely - attractive

Rossetti's art was characterised by its sensuality and its medieval revivalism. His early poetry was influenced by [|John Keats]. His later poetry was characterised by the complex interlinking of thought and feeling, especially in his sonnet sequence //The House of Life//. Poetry and image are closely entwined in Rossetti's work; he frequently wrote sonnets to accompany his pictures, spanning from //The Girlhood of Mary Virgin// (1849) and //Astarte Syriaca// (1877), while also creating art to illustrate poems such as //Goblin Market// by [|Christina Rossetti], his sister and celebrated poet.
 * Dante Gabriel Rossetti** (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882) was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the [|Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood] in 1848 with [|William Holman Hunt] and [|John Everett Millais], and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement, most notably [|William Morris] and [|Edward Burne-Jones]. His work also influenced the European [|Symbolists] and was a major precursor of the [|Aesthetic movement].