Sunday Poems by Rossetti

These two poems are from a collection of sonnets called Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets. It's made up of (as the title suggests) 28 sonnets - one for each line of two sonnets. These are largely religious and reflective (and have been compared with the Holy Sonnets of John Donne). since it's Sunday and I didn't make it to church this morning, I thought I'd copy out a couple of poems (one sacred, one secular) that caught my attention when I was reading this morning:

Sonnet 4
So tired am I, so weary of today,
So unrefreshed from foregone weariness,
So overburdened by forseen distress,
So lagging and so stumbling on my way,
I scarce can rouse myself to watch or pray,
To hope or aim, or toil for more or less,--
Ah, always less and less, even while I press
Forward and toil and aim as best I may.
Half-starved of soul and heartsick utterly,
Yet lift I up my heart and soul and eyes
(Which fail in looking upward) toward the prize:
Me, Lord, Thou seest tho' I see not Thee;
Me now, as once the Thief in Paradise,
Even me, O Lord my Lord, remember me.

Sonnet 17

Something this foggy day, a something which
Is neither of this fog nor of today,
Has set me dreaming of the winds that play
Past certain cliffs, along one certain beach,
And turn the topmost edge of waves to spray:
Ah pleasant pebbly strand so far away,
So out of reach while quite within my reach,
As out of reach as India or Cathay!
I am sick of where I am and where I am not,
I am sick of foresight and of memory,
I am sick of all I have and all I see,
I am sick of self, and there is nothing new;
Oh weary impatient patience of my lot! --
Thus with myself: how fares it, Friends, with you?