Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our loves restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

I think you will acknowledge that this is very pretty; and the same poet
has treated the idea equally well in other poems of a more complicated
kind. But another poet of the period was haunted even more than Rossetti
by this idea--Arthur O'Shaughnessy. Like Rossetti he was a great lover,
and very unfortunate in his love; and he wrote his poems, now famous, out
of the pain and regret that was in his heart, much as singing birds born
in cages are said to sing better when their eyes are put out. Here is one
example:

Along the garden ways just now
I heard the flowers speak;
The white rose told me of your brow,
The red rose of your cheek;
The lily of your bended head,
The bindweed of your hair:
Each looked its loveliest and said
You were more fair.

I went into the woods anon,
And heard the wild birds sing
How sweet you were; they warbled on,
Piped, trill'd the self-same thing.
Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause