Sutherland Gardens, W.,
15th April, 1883.
Dear Mr. Rossetti,
As your wife kindly expressed a wish that I would send you a copy of the sonnet I left in your brother’s coffin along with the flowers, I now do so. It must be judged not as a literary production, but as last words straight from the heart of one who loved and revered your brother.
Yours very sincerely,
William Sharp.
To Dante Gabriel Rossetti
AVE! MORS NON EST!
True heart, great spirit, who hast sojourn’d here
Till now the darkness rounds thee, and Death’s sea
Hath surged and ebbed and carried suddenly
Thy Soul far hence, as from a stony, drear,
And weary coast the tide the wrack doth shear;
Thou art gone hence, and though our sight may be
Strained with a yearning gaze, the mystery