Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription
Document Title: Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1873): the Tauchnitz Edition (Princeton
proof fragments)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of publication: 1873 November (early November)
Publisher: Bernhard Tauchnitz
The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
- Mother, is this the darkness of the end,
- The Shadow of Death? and is that outer sea
- Infinite imminent Eternity?
- And does the death-pang by man's seed sustain'd
- In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend
- Its silent prayer upon the Son, while he
- Blesses the dead with his hand silently
- To his long day which hours no more offend?
- Mother of grace, the pass is difficult,
- 10 Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls
- Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering through.
- Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols,
- Whose peace abides in the dark avenue
- Amid the bitterness of things occult.
Sig. 17’
Printer's Direction: 122
Editorial Description: Pencil note on right lower corner.
- Water, for anguish of the solstice:—nay,
- But dip the vessel slowly,—nay, but lean
- And hark how at its verge the wave sighs in
- Reluctant. Hush! Beyond all depth away
- The heat lies silent at the brink of day:
- Now the hand trails upon the viol-string
- That sobs, and the brown faces cease to sing,
- Sad with the whole of pleasure. Whither stray
- Her eyes now, from whose mouth the slim pipes creep
- 10 And leave it pouting, while the shadowed grass
- Is cool against her naked side? Let be:—
- Say nothing now unto her lest she weep,
- Nor name this ever. Be it as it was,—
- Life touching lips with Immortality.
- “Why wilt thou cast the roses from thine hair?
- Nay, be thou all a rose,—wreath, lips, and cheek.
- Nay, not this house,—that banquet-house we seek;
- See how they kiss and enter; come thou there-
- This delicate day of love we two will share
- Till at our ear love's whispering night shall speak.
- What, sweet one,—hold'st thou still the foolish freak?
- Nay, when I kiss thy feet they'll leave the stair.”
- “Oh loose me! See'st thou not my Bridegroom's face
- 10 That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss,
- My hair, my tears He craves to-day:—and oh!
- What words can tell what other day and place
- Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His?
- He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!”
Transcribed Footnote (page 267):
* In the drawing Mary has left a
festal procession
of
revellers
, and is ascending by a
sudden impulse the steps of
the house where she sees Christ. Her lover has
followed her and is
trying to turn her back.
Manuscript Addition: 126
Editorial Description: Pencil note on right lower corner.
- 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 rend 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.
- She hath the apple in her hand for thee,
- Yet almost in her heart would hold it back;
- She muses, with her eyes upon the track
- Of that which in thy spirit they can see.
- Haply, “Behold, he is at peace,” saith she;
- “Alas! the apple for his lips,—the dart
- That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,—
- The wandering of his feet perpetually!”
- A little space her glance is still and coy;
- 10 But if she give the fruit that works her spell,
- Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy.
- Then shall her bird's strained throat the woe foretell,
- And her far seas moan as a single shell,
- And her grove glow with love-lit fires of Troy. Through her dark grove strike the light of Troy.
- I.
- Rend, rend thine hair, Cassandra: he will go.
- Yea, rend thy garments, wring thine hands, and cry
- From Troy still towered to the unreddened sky.
- See, all but she that bore thee mock thy woe:—
- He most whom that fair woman arms, with show
- Of wrath on her bent brows; for in this place
- This hour thou bad'st all men in Helen's face
- The ravished ravishing prize of Death to know.
- What eyes, what ears hath sweet Andromache,
- 10 Save for her Hector's form and step; as tear
- On tear make salt the warm last kiss he gave?
- He goes. Cassandra's words beat heavily
- Like crows above his crest, and at his ear
- Ring hollow in the shield that shall not save.
Transcribed Footnote (page 272):
*The subject shows Cassandra prophesying among her kindred, as
Hector
leaves them for his last battle. They are on the platform of a fortress,
from which the Trojan troops are marching out. Helen is arming Paris; Priam
soothes Hecuba; and Andromache holds the child to her bosom.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File:
1-1870.tauchnitz.prin.rad.xml
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