In that hint lies the acknowledgment of the Platonic ideal,—that whatever dignifies and ennobles the affections must lie not in the outward conditions but within; that the senses are but the accessories of Love; the temporary channels, not the eternal stream. And this insistence on the spiritual aspects of passion affects the whole tone and temper of Rossetti’s poetry; raising it, in moments of intense feeling, almost to the mystic exaltation of a Pascal, and transfiguring all the world of consciousness by the knowledge and memory of an overmastering love. From the first to the last of the hundred sonnets we are shown steadfastly the outlook upon life of one to whom all life has been sanctified by that supreme experience. “Who can read ‘The House of Life’” (says Mr. F.W.H. Myers in his essay on “Rossetti and the Religion of Beauty”[15]) “and not feel that this poet has known love as love can be, not an enjoyment only or a triumph, but a worship and a regeneration?” In such a spirit does the poet take account of time and opportunity, and recognize the solemnities of passing hour. Life has become more sacred, the man more responsible, the imperative forces of character and destiny more urgent than before. The sense of personal possibilities and shortcomings weighs upon him. “Lost days” and wasted chances oppress his mind. The actualities of evil in his own sphere of being look darker in the face of the recognized good: “The lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The throats of men in Hell, athirst alway? I do not see them here, but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. ‘I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?’ ‘And I—and I—thyself,’ (lo! each one saith,) ‘And thou thyself to all eternity!’” And in a similar strain the poet prays: “O Lord of work and peace! O Lord of life! O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late, Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath: That when the peace is garnered in from strife, The work retrieved, the will regenerate, This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death!”