Across space

(Extracts from The Blessed Damozel by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

It was the rampart of God's house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;
So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.
It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge ….

…..From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.
The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather…..



The light thrilled towards her, fill'd
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd.
(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. (I heard her tears.)

I thought of this poem as I watched the movie Thor today. Only it was not a damsel watching for her lover on earth from the parapet of Heaven, but the hammer wielding Thor standing at the edge of the destroyed Bifrost Bridge, the only connection of the people of Asgard to other worlds. As Thor looks into the abyss below, he asks Heimdall, the bridge’s gatekeeper who can see all and hear all, that what is Jane (the woman Thor falls in love with during his exile on Earth) doing. Heimdall says she is looking for you.