Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription
Document Title: Soul's Beauty (Sibylla Palmifera) (fair copy manuscript, Delaware Art Museum)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1867
Type of Manuscript: holograph pen and ink fair copy
Scribe: DGR
The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
![Image of page [1]](http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/1-1867.delms.jpg)
- Under the arch of life, where Love and death,
- Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
- Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
- I drew it in as simply as my breath.
- Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,
- The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw,
- Through sea or sky or woman, to one law;
- The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.
- This is that Lady Beauty; in whose praise
- 10Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee
- By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat
- Following her daily of thy heart and feet,
- How passionately and irretrievably,
- In what fond flight, how many ways and days!
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File:
1-1867.delms.rad.xml
Copyright: Digital images courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R.
Bancroft Collection.