Friday poem - Rossetti

Thinking of Isabel's sad wandering in Rome made me think of one of my favourite Christina Rossettis: 'An End'. To me it speaks about an ending that's not tempestuous or anguished, but quiet and still, sad and soft.  There's even almost relief, after the heat of death-strong love, in the coolness of it.

Love, strong as Death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers:
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
Sit we by his grave, and sing
He is gone away.

To few chords and sad and low
Sing we so:
Be our eyes fixed on the grass
Shadow-veiled as the years pass,
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.