Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Poems (1870): Exhumation Proofs, Second Issue (partial), Princeton/Troxell (copy 1)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of publication: 1869 November (early November)
Printer: Strangeways and Walden
Issue: 1

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

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Manuscript Addition: [Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882. / Exhumation proofs. London /
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/ >] First proofs After exhumation /
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cond issue. / After October 14, 1869 / Copy I.
Editorial Description: Notation on blank page of ms, not in DGR's penmanship.
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Sig. B
A LAST CONFESSION.

( Regno Lombardo-Veneto, 1848.)

  • Our Lombard country-girls along the coast
  • Wear daggers in their garters; for they know
  • That they might hate another girl to death
  • Or meet a German lover. Such a knife
  • I bought her, with a hilt of horn and pearl.
  • Father, you cannot know of all my thoughts
  • That day in going to meet her,—that last day
  • For the last time, she said;—of all the love
  • And all the hopeless hope that she might change
  • 10And go back with me. Ah! and everywhere,
  • At places we both knew along the road,
  • Some fresh shape of herself as once she was
  • Grew present at my side; until it seemed—
  • So close they gathered round me—they would all
  • Be with me when I reached the spot at last,
  • To plead my cause with her against herself
  • So changed. O Father, if you knew all this
  • You cannot know, then you would know too, Father,
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  • And only then, if God can pardon me.
  • 20What can be told I'll tell, if you will hear.
  • I passed a village-fair upon my road,
  • And thought, being empty-handed, I would take
  • Some little present, which might prove that day
  • Either a pledge between us, or (God help me!)
  • A parting gift. And there it was I bought
  • The knife I spoke of, such as women wear.
  • That day, some three hours afterwards, I found
  • For certain, it must be a parting gift.
  • And, standing silent now at last, I looked
  • 30Into her scornful face; and heard the sea
  • Still trying hard to din into my ears
  • Some speech it knew which still might change her heart
  • If only it could make me understand.
  • One moment thus. Another, and her face
  • Seemed further off than the last line of sea,
  • So that I thought, if now she were to speak
  • I could not hear her. Then again I knew
  • All, as we stood together on the sand
  • At Iglio, in the first thin shade o'the hills.
  • 40 ‘Take it,’ I said, and held it out to her,
  • While the hilt glanced within my trembling hold;
  • ‘Take it,’ I said, ‘and keep it for my sake.’
    Added Text“Take it and keep it for my sake,” I said.
  • Her neck did not unbend, nor drooped her eyes,
    Added TextHer neck unbent not, neither did her eyes
  • Nor did her foot leave beating of the sand;
    Added TextMove, nor her foot left beating of the sand;
  • Only she put it by from her and laughed.
Note: Two leaves (pages 3-6) missing from extant manuscript.
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  • She needs must fix him there herself, because
  • I gave him to her and she loved him so,
  • And he should make her love me better yet,
  • If women loved the more, the more they grew.
  • 50But the fit place upon the wall was high
  • For her, and so I held her in my arms:
  • And each time that the heavy pruning-hook
  • I gave her for a hammer slipped away
  • As it would often, still she laughed and laughed
  • And kissed and kissed me. But amid her mirth,
  • Just as she hung the image on the nail,
  • It slipped and all its fragments strewed the ground:
  • And as it fell she screamed, for in her hand
  • The dart had entered deeply and drawn blood.
  • 60And so her laughter turned to tears: and ‘Oh!’
  • I said, the while I bandaged the small hand,—
  • ‘That I should be the first to make you bleed,
  • Who love and love and love you!’—kissing still
  • The fingers till I got her safe to bed.
  • And still she sobbed,—‘not for the pain at all,’
  • She said, ‘but for the Love, the poor good Love
  • You gave me.’ So she cried herself to sleep.
  • Another later thing comes back to me.
  • 'Twas in those hardest foulest days of all,
  • 70When still from his shut palace, sitting clean
  • Above the splash of blood, old Metternich
  • (May his soul die, and never-dying worms
  • Feast on its pain for ever!) used to thin
  • His year's doomed hundreds daintily, each month
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  • Thirties and fifties. This time, as I think,
  • Was when his thrift forbad the poor to take
  • That evil brackish salt which the dry rocks
  • Keep all through winter when the sea draws in.
  • The first I heard of it was a chance shot
  • 80 Here and there in the street, In the street here and there, and on the stones
  • A stumbling clatter as of horse hemmed round.
  • Then, when she saw me hurry out of doors,
  • My gun slung at my shoulder and my knife
  • Stuck in my girdle, she smoothed down my hair
  • And laughed to see me look so brave, and leaped
  • Up to my neck and kissed me. She was still
  • A child; and yet that kiss was on my lips
  • So hot all day where the smoke shut us in.
  • For now, being always with her, the first love
  • 90I had—the father's, brother's love—was changed,
  • I think, in somewise; like a holy thought
  • Which is a prayer before one knows of it.
  • The first time I perceived this, I remember,
  • Was once when after hunting I came home
  • Weary, and she brought food and fruit for me,
  • And sat down at my feet upon the floor
  • Leaning against my side. But when I felt
  • Her sweet head reach from that low seat of hers
  • So high as to be laid upon my heart,
  • 100I turned and looked upon my darling there
  • And marked for the first time how tall she was;
  • And my heart beat with so much violence
  • Under her cheek, I thought she could not choose
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  • But wonder at it soon and ask me why;
  • And so I bade her rise and eat with me.
  • And when, remembering all and counting back
  • The time, I made out fourteen years for her
  • And told her so, she gazed at me with eyes
  • As of the sky and sea on a grey day,
  • 110And drew her long hands through her hair, and asked me
  • If she was not a woman; and then laughed:
  • And as she stooped in laughing, I could see
  • Beneath the growing throat the breasts half globed
  • Like folded lilies deepset in the stream.
  • Yes, let me think of her as then; for so
  • Her image, Father, is not like the sights
  • Which come when you are gone. She had a mouth
  • Made to bring death to life,—the underlip
  • Sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself.
  • 120Her face was ever pale, as when one stoops
  • Over wan water; and the dark crisped hair
  • And the hair's shadow made it paler still:—
  • Deep-serried locks, the darkness of the cloud
  • Where the moon's gaze is shrined set in eddying gloom.
  • Her body bore her neck as the tree's stem
  • Bears the top branch; and as the branch sustains
  • Its pride of flower and fruit, her high neck bore
    Added Text The full year's flowering f
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    Its whole The flower of the year's pride, her proud high neck bore
  • That face made wonderful with night and day.
  • Her voice was swift, yet ever the last words
  • 130Fell lingeringly; and rounded finger-tips
  • She had, that clung a little where they touched
  • And then were gone o' the instant. Her great eyes,
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  • That sometimes turned half dizzily beneath
  • The passionate lids, as faint, when she would speak,
  • Had also in them hidden springs of mirth,
  • Which under the dark lashes evermore
  • Shook to her laugh, as when a bird flies low
  • Between the water and the willow-leaves,
  • And the shade quivers till he wins the light.
  • 140 I was a moody comrade to her then,
  • For all the love I bore her. Italy,
  • The weeping desolate mother, long has claimed
  • Her sons' strong arms to lean on, and their hands
  • To lop the poisonous thicket from her path,
  • Cleaving her way to light. And from her need
  • Had grown the fashion of my whole poor life
  • Which I was proud to yield her, as my father
  • Had yielded his. And this had come to be
  • A game to play, a love to clasp, a hate
  • 150To wreak, all things together that a man
  • Needs for his blood to ripen: till at times
  • All else seemed shadows, and I wondered still
  • To see such life pass muster and be deemed
  • Time's bodily substance. In those hours, no doubt,
  • To the young girl my eyes were like my soul,—
  • Dark wells of death-in-life that yearned for day.
  • And though she ruled me always, I remember
  • That once when I was thus and she still kept
  • Leaping about the place and laughing, I
  • 160Did almost chide her; whereupon she knelt
  • And putting her two hands into my breast
Note: Three leaves (pages 11-16) missing from extant manuscript.
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Sig. C
  • It is that then we have her with us here,
  • As when she wrung her hair out in my dream
  • To-night, till all the darkness reeked of it.
  • Her hair is always wet, for she has kept
  • Its tresses wrapped about her side for years;
  • And when she wrung them round over the floor,
  • I heard the blood hiss through her fingers; so between her fingers hiss,
  • That I sat straight So that I sat up in my bed and screamed
  • 170Once and again; and once to once, she laughed.
  • Look that you turn not now,—she's at your back:
  • Gather your robe up, Father, and keep close,
  • Or she'll sit down on it and send you mad.
  • At Iglio in the first thin shade o' the hills
  • The sand is black and red. The black was black
  • When what was spilt that day sank into it,
  • And the red scarcely darkened. There I stood
  • This night with her, and saw the sand the same.

  • What would you have me tell you? Father, father,
  • 180How shall I make you know? You have not known
  • The dreadful soul of woman, who one day
  • Forgets the old and takes the new to heart,
  • Forgets what man remembers, and therewith
  • Forgets the man. Nor can I clearly tell
  • How the change happened between her and me.
  • Her eyes looked on me from an emptied heart
  • When most my heart was full of her; and still
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  • In every corner of myself I sought
  • To find what service failed her; and no less
  • 190Than in the good time past, there all was hers.
  • What do you love? Your Heaven? Conceive it spread
  • For one first year of all eternity
  • All round you with all joys and gifts of God;
  • And then when most your soul is blent with it
  • And all yields song together,—then it stands
  • O' the sudden like a pool that once gave back
  • Your image, but now drowns it and is clear
  • Again,—or like a sun bewitched, that burns
  • Your shadow from you, and still shines in sight.
  • 200How could you bear it? Would you not cry out,
  • Among those eyes grown blind to you, those ears
  • That hear no more your voice you hear the same,—
  • ‘God! what is left but hell for company,
  • But hell, hell, hell?’—until the name so breathed
  • Whirled with hot wind and sucked you down in fire?
  • Even so I stood the day her empty heart
  • Left her place empty in our home, while yet
  • I knew not why she went nor where she went
  • Nor how to reach her: so I stood the day
  • 210When to my prayers at last one sight of her
  • Was granted, and I looked on heaven made pale
  • With scorn, and heard heaven mock me in that laugh.
  • O sweet, long sweet! Was that some ghost of you
  • Even as your ghost that haunts me now,—twin shapes
  • Of fear and hatred? May I find you yet
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  • Mine when death wakes? Ah! be it even in flame,
  • We may have sweetness yet, if you but say
  • As once in childish sorrow: ‘Not my pain,
  • My pain was nothing: oh your poor poor love,
  • 220Your broken love!’
  • My Father, it is hard have I not
  • To tell Yet told you the last things of that last day
  • Added TextOn which I went to meet her by the sea?
  • Added TextO God, O God! but I must tell you all.
  • But I must tell you all now. While I stopped
    Added TextMidway upon my journey, when I stopped
  • To buy the dagger at the village fair,
  • I saw two cursed rats about the place
  • I knew for spies—blood-sellers both. That day
  • Was not yet over; for three hours to come
  • I prized my life: and so I looked around
  • 230For safety. A poor painted mountebank
  • Was playing pranks and shouting in a crowd.
  • I knew he must have heard my name, so I
  • Pushed past and whispered to him who I was,
  • And of my danger. Straight he hustled me
  • Into his booth, as it were in the trick,
  • And brought me out next minute with my face
  • All smeared in patches and a zany's gown;
  • And there I handed him his cups and balls
  • And swung the sand-bags round to clear the ring
  • 240For half an hour. The spies came once and looked;
  • And while they stopped, and made all sights and sounds
  • Sharp to my startled senses, I remember
  • A woman laughed above me. I looked up
  • And saw her—a brown handsome harlot—leaning
  • Half through a tavern window thick with vine.
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  • Some man had come behind her in the room
  • And caught her by her arms, and she had turned
  • With that coarse empty laugh. I saw him there
  • Munching her neck with kisses, while the vine
  • 250Crawled in her back.
  • And three hours afterwards,
  • When she that I had run all risks to meet
  • Laughed as I told you, my life burned to death
  • Within me, for I thought it like the laugh
  • Heard at the fair. She had not left me long;
  • But all she might have changed to, or might change to,
  • (I know nought since—she never speaks a word—)
  • Seemed in that laugh. Have I not told you yet,
  • Not told you all this time what happened, Father,
  • When I had offered her the little knife,
  • 260And bade her keep it for my sake that loved her,
  • And she had laughed? Have I not told you yet?
  • ‘Take it,’ I said to her the second time,
  • ‘Take it and keep it.’ And then came a fire
  • That burnt my hand; and then the fire was blood.
  • And sea and sky were blood and fire, and all
  • The day was one red blindness; till it seemed
  • Within the whirling brain's entanglement
  • That she or I or all things bled to death.
  • And then I found her lying at my feet
  • 270And knew that I had stabbed her, and saw still
  • The look she gave me when she took the knife
  • Deep in her heart, even as I bade her then,
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  • And fell, and her stiff bod dice scooped the sand
  • Into her bosom.
  • And she keeps it, see,
  • Do you not see she keeps it?—there, beneath
  • Wet fingers and wet tresses, in her heart.
  • For look you, when she stirs her hand, it shows
  • The little hilt of horn and pearl,—even such
  • A dagger as our women of the coast
  • 280Twist in their garters.
  • Father, I have done:
  • And from her side now she unwinds the thick
  • Dark hair; all round her side it is wet through,
  • But like the sand at Iglio does not change.
  • Now you may see the dagger clearly. Father,
  • I have told all: tell me at once what hope
  • Can reach me still. For now she draws it out
  • Slowly, and only smiles as yet: look, Father,
  • She scarcely smiles: but I shall hear her laugh
  • Soon, when she shows the crimson blade to God.
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Editorial Description: Lower-case letter hand-written in upper-left corner of page. Not in DGR's penmanship.
JENNY.

“Vengeance of Jenny's case! Fie on her! Never name her,

child!”—( Mrs. Quickly.)

  • Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
  • Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,
  • Whose head is on my knee to-night;—
  • (Have all our dances left it light
  • With their wild tunes?)—Ah, Jenny, queen
  • Of kisses which the blush between
  • Could hardly make much daintier!— Nay,
  • Poor flower left torn since yesterday
  • Until to-morrow leave you bare;
  • 10Poor handful of bright spring-water
  • Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face!—
  • Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace
  • Thus with your head upon my knee;—
  • Whose person or whose purse may be
  • The lodestar of your reverie?
  • This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
  • A change from mine so full of books,
  • Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth,
  • So many captive hours of youth,—
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  • 20The hours they thieve from day and night
  • To make one's cherished work come right,
  • And leave it wrong for all their theft,
  • Even as to-night my work was left:
  • Until I vowed that since my brain
  • And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,
  • My feet should have some dancing too:—
  • And thus it was I met with you.
  • Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part,
  • For here I am. And now, sweetheart,
  • 30You seem too tired to get to bed.
  • It was a careless life I led
  • When rooms like this were scarce so strange
  • Not long ago. What breeds the change,—
  • The many aims or the few years?
  • Because to-night it all appears
  • Something I do not know again.
  • The cloud's not danced out of my brain,—
  • The cloud that made the books so swim/dim it turn and swim
  • At every effort's interim.
    Added TextWhile hour by hour my the books grew dim
  • 40Why, Jenny, as I watch you there,—
  • For all your wealth of loosened hair,
  • Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd
  • And warm sweets open to the waist,
  • All golden in the lamplight's gleam,—
  • You know not what a book you seem,
  • Half-read by lightning in a dream!
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    Manuscript Addition: 55
    Editorial Description: Numbers hand-written in upper-right corner of page. Not in DGR's penmanship.
  • How should you know, my Jenny? Nay,
  • And I should be ashamed to say:—
  • Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss!
  • 50But while my thought runs on like this
  • With wasteful whims more than enough,
  • I wonder what you're thinking of.
  • If of myself you think at all,
  • What is the thought?—conjectural
  • On sorry matters best unsolved?—
  • Or inly is each grace revolved
  • To fit me with a lure?—or (sad
  • To think!) perhaps you're merely glad
  • That I'm not drunk or ruffianly
  • 60And let you rest upon my knee.
  • For sometimes, were the truth confess'd,
  • You're thankful for a little rest,—
  • Glad from the crush to rest within,
  • Form the heart-sickness and the din
  • Where envy's voice at virtue's pitch
  • Mocks you because your gown is rich;
  • And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke,
  • Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look
  • Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak
  • 70And other nights than yours bespeak;
  • And from the wise unchildish elf,
  • To schoolmate lesser than himself
  • Pointing you out, what thing you are:—
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  • Yes, from the daily jeer and jar,
  • From shame and shame's outbraving too,
  • Is rest not sometimes sweet to you?—
  • But most from the hatefulness of man
  • Who spares not to end what he began,
  • Whose acts are foul ill and his speech hard, ill,
  • 80Who, having used you , afterward at his will,
  • Thrusts you aside, as when I dine
  • I serve the dishes and the wine.
  • Well, handsome Jenny mine, sit up,
  • I've filled our glasses, let us sup,
  • And do not let me think of you,
  • Lest shame of yours suffice for two.
  • What, still so tired? Well, well then, keep
  • Your head there, so you do not sleep;
  • But that the weariness may pass
  • 90And leave you merry, take this glass.
  • Ah! lazy lily hand, more bless'd
  • If ne'er in rings it had been dress'd
  • Nor ever by a glove conceal'd!
  • Behold the lilies of the field,
  • They toil not neither do they spin;
  • (So doth the ancient text begin,—
  • Not of such rest as one of these
  • Can share.) Another rest and ease
  • Along each summer-sated path
  • 100From its new lord the garden hath,
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  • Than that whose spring in blessings ran
  • Which praised the righteous husbandman,
  • Ere yet, in days of hankering breath,
  • The lilies sickened unto death.
  • What, Jenny, are your lilies dead?
  • Aye, and the snow-white leaves are spread
  • Like winter on the garden-bed.
  • But you had roses left in May,—
  • They were not gone too. Jenny, nay,
  • 110But must your roses die away?
  • Even so; the leaves are curled apart,
  • Still red as from the broken heart,
  • And here's the naked stem of thorns.
  • Nay, nay, mere words. Here nothing warns
  • As yet of winter. Sickness here
  • Or want alone could waken fear,—
  • Nothing but passion wrings a tear.
  • Except when there may rise unsought
  • Haply at times a passing thought
  • 120Of the old days which seem to be
  • Much older than any history
  • That is written in any book;
  • When she would lie in fields and look
  • Along the ground through the thick blown grass,
  • And wonder where the city was,
  • Far out of sight, whose broil and bale
  • They told her then for a child's tale.
Added Text
  • Along the ground under the trees
  • That the breeze heaved, and watch the breeze
  • Skim like a vapour all the gra
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  • Jenny, you know the city now.
  • A child can tell the tale there, how
  • 130Some things which are not yet enroll'd
  • In market-lists are bought and sold
  • Even till the early Sunday light,
  • When Saturday night is market-night
  • Everywhere, be it dry or wet,
  • And market-night in the Haymarket.
  • Our learned London children know,
  • Poor Jenny, all your mirth and woe;
  • Have seen your lifted silken skirt
  • Advertize dainties through the dirt;
  • 140Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke
  • On virtue; and have learned your look
  • When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare
  • Along the streets alone, and there,
  • Round the long park, across the bridge,
  • The cold lamps at the pavement's edge
  • Wind on together and apart,
  • A fiery serpent for your heart.
  • Let the thoughts pass, an empty cloud . !
  • Suppose I were to think aloud,—
  • 150What if to her all this were said?
  • Why, as a volume seldom read
  • Being opened halfway shuts again,
  • So might the pages of her brain
  • Be parted at such words, and thence
  • Close back upon the dusty sense.
Added Text
  • Whose sermoned stones on Sunday morn
  • (The golden London pavement, worn
  • Afresh with every Sabbath-bell,)
  • Rinse thoughts the mind may not dispel
  • Of well-intentioned sheets in Hell
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Note: Leaf (pages 29-30) missing from extant manuscript.
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  • At Judgment, one of his own race,
  • As frail and lost as you, shall rise,
  • Through all time's hopes of kindred ties
  • His daughter, with his mother's eyes?
  • Each of such curdled lives alike
  • 160A life for which my twelve hours strike
  • And time must be and time must end.
  • Hard to keep sight of! What might tend
  • To give the thought clear presence? Well,
  • Remember it is possible,
  • Whether I please or do not please,
  • That in the making each of these
  • A separate man has lost his soul.
  • Fair shines the gilded aureole
  • In which our highest painters place
  • 170Some living woman's simple face.
  • And the stilled features thus descried
  • As Jenny's long throat droops aside,—
  • The loving underlip drawn in,
  • The shadows where the cheeks are thin,
  • And pure wide curve from ear to chin,—
  • With Raffael's or Da Vinci's hand
  • To show them to men's souls, might stand,
  • Whole ages long, the whole world through,
  • For preachings of what God can do.
  • 180What has man done here? How atone,
  • Great God, for this which man has done?
  • And for the body and soul which by
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  • Man's pitiless doom must now comply
  • With lifelong hell, what lullaby
  • Of sweet forgetful second birth
  • Remains? All dark. No sign on earth
  • What measure of God's rest endows
  • The many mansions of his house.
  • If but a woman's heart might see
  • 190Such erring heart unerringly
  • For once! But that can never be.
  • Like a rose shut in a book
  • In which pure women may not look,
  • For its base pages claim control
  • To crush the flower within the soul;
  • Where through each dead rose-leaf that clings,
  • Pale as transparent psyche-wings,
  • To the vile text, are traced such things
  • As might make lady's cheek indeed
  • 200More than a living rose to read;
  • So nought save foolish foulness may
  • Watch with hard eyes the sure decay;
  • And so the life-blood of this rose,
  • Puddled with shameful knowledge, flows
  • Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose:
  • Yet still it keeps such faded show
  • Of when 'twas gathered long ago,
  • That the crushed petals' lovely grain,
  • The sweetness of the sanguine stain,
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    Sig. D
  • 210Seen of a woman's eyes, must make
  • Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache,
  • Love roses better for its sake:—
  • Only that this can never be:—
  • Even so unto her sex is she.
  • Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,
  • The woman almost fades from view.
  • A cypher of man's changeless sum
  • Of lust, past, present, and to come,
  • Is left. A riddle that one shrinks
  • 220To challenge from the scornful sphinx.
  • Like a toad within a stone
  • Seated while Time crumbles on;
  • Which sits there since the earth was curs'd
  • For Man's transgression at the first;
  • Which, living through all centuries,
  • Not once has seen the sun arise;
  • Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,
  • The earth's whole summers have not warmed;
  • Which always—whitherso the stone
  • 230Be cast flung—sits there, deaf, blind, alone;—
  • Aye, and shall not be driven out
  • Till that which shuts him round about
  • Break at the very Master's stroke,
  • And the dust thereof vanish as smoke,
  • And the seed of Man vanish as dust:—
  • Even so within this world is Lust.
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  • Come, come, what use in thoughts like this?
  • Poor little Jenny, good to kiss,—
  • You'd not believe by what strange roads
  • 240Thought travels, when your beauty goads
  • A man to-night to think of toads!
  • Jenny, wake up. . . . Why, there's the dawn!
  • And there's an early waggon drawn
  • To market, and some sheep that jog
  • Bleating before a barking dog;
  • And the old streets come peering through
  • Another night that London knew;
  • And all as ghostlike as the lamps.
  • So on the wings of day decamps
  • 250My last night's frolic. Glooms begin
  • To shiver off as lights creep in
  • Past the gauze curtains half drawn-to,
  • And the lamp's doubled shade grows blue,—
  • Your lamp, my Jenny, kept alight,
  • Like a wise virgin's, all one night!
  • And in the alcove coolly spread
  • Glimmers with dawn your empty bed;
  • And yonder your fair face I see
  • Reflected lying on my knee,
  • 260Where teems with first foreshadowings
  • Your pier-glass scrawled with diamond rings.
  • And somehow in myself the dawn
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  • Among stirred clouds and veils withdrawn
  • Strikes greyly on her. Let her sleep.
  • But will it wake her if I heap
  • These cushions thus beneath her head
  • Where my knee was? No,—there's your bed,
  • My Jenny, while you dream. And there
  • I lay among your golden hair
  • 270Perhaps the subject of your dreams,
  • These golden coins.
  • For still one deems
  • That Jenny's flattering sleep confers
  • New magic on the magic purse,—
  • Grim web, how clogged with shrivelled flies!
  • Between the threads fine fumes arise
  • And shape their pictures in the brain.
  • There roll no streets in glare and rain,
  • Nor flagrant man-swine whets his tusk;
  • But delicately sighs in musk
  • 280The homage of the dim boudoir;
  • Or like a palpitating star
  • Thrilled into song, the opera-night
  • Breathes faint in the quick pulse of light;
  • Or at the carriage-window shine
  • Rich wares for choice; or, free to dine,
  • Whirls through its hour of health (divine
  • For her) the concourse of the Park.
  • And though in the discounted dark
  • Her functions there and here are one,
  • 290Beneath the lamps and in the sun
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  • There reigns at least the acknowledged belle
  • Apparelled beyond parallel.
  • Ah Jenny, yes, we know your dreams.
  • For even the Paphian Venus seems
  • A goddess o'er the realms of love,
  • When silver-shrined in shadowy grove:
  • Aye, or let offerings nicely placed
  • But hide Priapus to the waist,
  • And whoso looks on him shall see
  • 300An eligible deity.
  • Why, Jenny, waking here alone
  • May help you to remember one!
  • I think I see you when you wake,
  • And rub your eyes for me, and shake
  • My gold, in rising, from your hair,
  • A Danaë for a moment there.
  • Jenny, my love rang true! for still
  • Love at first sight is vague, until
  • That tinkling makes him audible.
  • 310And must I mock you to the last,
  • Ashamed of my own shame, aghast
  • Because some thoughts not born amiss
  • Rose at a poor fair face like this?
  • Well, of such thoughts so much I know:
Added Text
  • Though all the memory's long outworn
  • Of many a double-bedded morn
Note: Stricken emendation by DGR at bottom of page. Same two line emendation recorded and stricken from page 36 of 1B ms.
Note: Three leaves (pages 37-42) missing from extant manuscript.
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THE SEA-LIMITS.
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Editorial Description: Notation by DGR next to title.
Manuscript Addition: c
Editorial Description: Lower-case letter hand-written in upper-left corner of page. Not in DGR's penmanship.
  • Consider the sea's listless chime:
  • Time's self it is, made audible,—
  • The murmur of the earth's own shell.
  • Secret continuance sublime
  • Is the sea's end: our sight may pass
  • No furlong further. Since time was,
  • This sound hath told the lapse of time.
Printer's Direction: topsy turvy
Editorial Description: DGR notes that the “e” at the end of “life” in line 9 is inverted.
  • No quiet, which is death's,—it hath
  • The mournfulness of ancient lif e,
  • 10 Enduring always at dull strife.
  • As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
  • Its painful pulse is in the sands.
  • Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
  • Grey and not known, along its path.
  • Listen alone beside the sea,
  • Listen alone among the woods;
  • Those voices of twin solitudes
  • Shall have one sound alike to thee:
  • Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
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  • 20 Surge and sink back and surge again,—
  • Still the one voice of wave and tree.
  • Gather a shell from the strown beach
  • And listen at its lips: they sigh
  • The same desire and mystery,
  • The echo of the whole sea's speech.
  • And all mankind is thus at heart
  • Not anything but what thou art:
  • And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.
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Editorial Description: Notation by DGR next to title.
SAINT LUKE THE PAINTER.
  • Give honour unto Luke Evangelist;
  • For he it was (the aged legends say)
  • Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.
  • Scarcely at once she dared to read the mist
  • Of devious symbols: but soon having wist
  • How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day
  • Are symbols also in some deeper way,
  • She looked through these to God and was God's priest.
  • And if, past noon, her toil began to irk,
  • 10And she sought talismans, and turned in vain
  • To soulless self-reflections of man's skill,—
  • Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still
  • Kneel in the latter grass to pray again,
  • Ere the night cometh and she may not work.
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Electronic Archive Edition: 1
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