Page:The New Life (Rossetti 1899) Siddal ed.djvu/154

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Can drive all other thoughts by its strange art?"

And the heart answers: "Be no more at strife

'Twixt doubt and doubt: this is Love's messenger

And speaketh but his words, from him received;

And all the strength it owns and all the life

It draweth from the gentle eyes of her

Who, looking on our grief, hath often grieved."

But against this adversary of reason, there rose up in me on a certain day, about the ninth hour, a strong visible phantasy, wherein I seemed to behold the most gracious Beatrice, habited in that crimson raiment which she had worn when I had first beheld her; also she appeared to me of the same tender age as then. Whereupon I fell into a deep thought of her; and my memory ran back, according to the order of time, unto all those matters in the which she had borne a part; and my heart began painfully to repent of the desire by which it had so basely