When vain desire at last and vain regret <br />Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain, <br />What shall assuage the unforgotten pain <br />And teach the unforgetful to forget? <br />Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet,— <br />Or may the soul at once in a green plain <br />Stoop through the spray of some sweet life-fountain <br />And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet? <br />Ah! when the wan soul in that golden air <br />Between the scriptured petals softly blown <br />Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown,— <br />Ah! let none other alien spell soe'er <br />But only the one Hope's one name be there,— <br />Not less nor more, but even that word alone.<br /><br />Dante Gabriel Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-ci-the-one-hope/
