Page:The New Life (Rossetti 1899) Siddal ed.djvu/161

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That this our heavy sorrow leaves you free

Though passing through the mournful town midway;

Like unto men that understand to-day

Nothing at all of her great misery?

Yet if ye will but stay, whom I accost,

And listen to my words a little space,

At going ye shall mourn with a loud voice.

It is her Beatrice that she hath lost;

Of whom the least word spoken holds such grace

That men weep hearing it, and have no choice.

A while after these things, two gentle ladies sent unto me, praying that I would bestow upon them certain of these my rhymes. And I (taking into account their worthiness and consideration) resolved that I would write also a new thing, and send it them together with those others, to the end that their wishes might be more honourably fulfilled.