Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: After the French Liberation of Italy (Arendts Collection uncorrected proof)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of publication: 1869

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

Image of page [1] page: [1]
Manuscript Addition: Sonnet by DG Rossetti—set up for privately printed poems of 1869 / never published
Editorial Description: WMR's pencil note at the top of the page
After the French Liberation of Italy
  • As when the last of the paid joys of love
  • Has come and gone; and with a single kiss
  • At length, and with one laugh of satiate bliss,
  • The wearied man a minute rests above
  • The wearied woman, no more urged to move
  • In those long throes of longing; till they glide,
  • Now lightlier clasped, each to the other's side,
  • In joys past acting, not past dreaming of: —
  • So Europe now beneath this paramour
  • 10Lies for a little out of use, —full oft
  • Submissive to his lust, a loveless whore.
  • He wakes, she sleeps, the breath falls slow & soft.
  • Wait: the bought body holds a birth within,
  • An harlot's child, to scourge her for her sin.
D.G.R. 1859
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 1-1859.nypl.2.rad.xml
Copyright: With permission of the New York Public Library