Sudden Light

I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before, —
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turn'd so,
Some veil did fall, — I knew it all of yore.

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

for "The Wine of Circe" by Edward Burne-Jones¹

Dusk-haired and gold-robed o’er the golden wine
      She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and shame,
      Sink the black drops; while, lit with fragrant flame,
Round her spread board the golden sunflowers shine.
Doth Helios2 here with Hecaté3 combine
      (O Circe, thou their votaress!) to proclaim
      For these thy guests all rapture in Love’s name,
Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign?

Lords of their hour, they come. And by her knee
      Those cowering beasts, their equals heretofore,
Wait; who with them in new equality
      To-night shall echo back the sea’s dull roar
      With a vain wail from passion’s tide-strown shore
Where the disheveled seaweed hates the sea.

¹ The painting by Burne-Jones (1833-98) described in the sonnet was completed in 1869. It depicts the enchantress Circe as she pours into a jar of wine drops of the potion by which she turned men into beasts (as she had done to Odysseus' crew); a table is set in the background. Through a window are seen three ships bringing new mariners to her island, while before her stand two black leopard-like beasts who are evidently among her earlier victims.

^2,3 Sun-god, identified with Apollo; Hecate (here pronounced with three syllables) a goddess in later Greek mythology identified with Artemis hence the moon.