Hey Inkblotters, it’s good ol’ V Day, so here’s what we promised you: one sonnet written by Lilith and one by a little poet named Christina Rossetti, you might have heard of her. We didn’t want to be too cliché and give you the Bard though, but we thought we’d give you some traditionalism with some Lemon Sherbet-ty goodness too.

If you haven’t read of Christina Rossetti’s ‘In an Artist’s Studio’ you are really missing a treat. There’s something truly beautiful about obsessing over art – any form, whether it be literature, music or a painting itself, it is still beautiful in the eye of the creator. So, sit back, enjoy and read between the lines.

And Happy Valentine’s Day!

– Silver

Lemon Sherbet

Written by Lilith

The bitter-sweet of half-remembered words,
And lemon sherbet, sticky from the bag,
And autumn days, harsh wind, and freezing rain
That made our dark’ning schooldays start to drag.
We missed the summer months so close behind,
The times when we had whispered through the night
And slept among the shoals and sands and tides
And kissed each other in the morning light.
Those dawns soon slipped away to afternoons,
So lazy, warm, and full of tender dreams,
But Autumn came and ripped us from that world
Replacing fantasies with custard creams.
Now the autumn too has slipped away
But lemon sherbet fills our darkened days.

In an Artist’s Studio 

Christina Rossetti

One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel – every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.