LITMIR.BIZ

       (Alas! we two, we two, thou say'st!

       Yea, one wast thou with me

       That once of old. But shall God lift

       To endless unity

       The soul whose likeness with thy soul

       Was but its love for thee?)

      It is the lover who now speaks, commenting upon the imagined words of the beloved in heaven. Endless unity here has a double meaning, signifying at once the mystical union of the soul with God, and the reunion forever of lovers separated by death. The lover doubts whether he can be found worthy to enter heaven, because his only likeness to the beloved was in his love for her; that is to say, his merit was not so much in being good as in loving good in another.

      "We two," she said, "will seek the groves

       Where the lady Mary is,

       With her fine handmaidens, whose names

       Are five sweet symphonies,

       Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,

       Margaret, and Rosalys.

      Notice the mediæval method of speaking of the mother of God as "the lady Mary"; such would have been the form of address for a princess or queen in those times. So King Arthur's wife, in the old romance, is called the lady Guinevere. Symphonies here has only the simplest meaning of a sweet sound, not of a combination of sounds; but the use of the word nevertheless implies to a delicate ear that the five names make harmony with each other. They are names of saints, but also favourite names given to daughters of great families as Christian names. The picture is simply that of the lady of a great castle, surrounded by her waiting women, engaged in weaving and sewing.

      "Circlewise sit they, with bound locks

       And foreheads garlanded;

       Into the fine cloth white like flame

       Weaving the golden thread,

       To fashion the birth-robes for them

       Who are just born, being dead.

      With bound locks means only with the hair tied up, not flowing loose, as was usual in figures of saints and angels. They are weaving garments for new souls received into heaven, just as mothers might weave cloth for a child soon to be born. The description of the luminous white cloth might be compared with descriptions in Revelation. Being dead. Christianity, like the Oriental religions, calls death a rebirth; but the doctrinal idea is entirely different. You will remember that the Greeks represented the soul under the form of a butterfly. Christianity approaches the Greek fancy by considering the human body as a sort of caterpillar, which enters the pupa-state at death; the soul is like the butterfly leaving the chrysalis. So far everything is easy to understand; but this rebirth of the soul is only half a rebirth in the Christian sense. The body is also to be born again at a later day. At present there are only souls in heaven; but after the judgment day the same bodies which they used to have during life are to be given back to them. Therefore Rossetti is not referring here to rebirth except in the sense of spiritual rebirth, as Christ used it, in saying "Ye must be born again"—that is, obtain new hearts, new feelings. What in Oriental poetry would represent a fact of belief, here represents only the symbol of a belief, a belief of a totally different kind.

      "He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:

       Then will I lay my cheek

       To his, and tell about our love,

       Not once abashed or weak:

       And the dear Mother will approve

       My pride, and let me speak.