page: [0]
page: [i]
COLLECTION
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
VOL. 1380.
POEMS BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
IN ONE VOLUME.
page: [ii]
page: [iii]
Manuscript Addition: To William Sharp / with regards & best wishes / Jan
y 1880 / Dante G. Rossetti
Editorial Description: in upper right corner of the page
POEMS
BY
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR
BY FRANZ HÜFFER.
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1873
The Right of Translation is reserved.
page: [iv]
page: [v]
TO
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI,
THESE POEMS,
TO SO MANY OF WHICH, SO MANY YEARS BACK,
HE GAVE THE FIRST BROTHERLY HEARING,
ARE NOW AT LAST DEDICATED.
page: [vi]
page: [vii]
“Habent sua fata libelli,” there seems to be a
goddess watching over the fates of
books, equally
whimsical as she who weaves the threads of our own
mortal
existence. Upon one she lavishes with un-
wearying hands the richest gifts
of praise and reward,
while others have to toil and struggle in darkness and
silence.
In Mr. Rossetti's book we gladly acknowledge one
of the rare cases
where the outward success of a work
of art has been proportionate to its
intrinsic merits,
and the rapid run of this first-born poetic
production
of its author through a number of editions, is the
more
remarkable, as at first sight it seems to appeal rather to
a narrow
circle of esoteric worshippers than to the
mass of readers. The reception of
the book on the
part of the best organs of the English press was
most
favourable; and not as the least sign of a
complete success we might
consider it, that violent
page: viii
detractors of its
merits have mixed their voices into
the almost unanimous applause: for this
dissent of
a few, makes the majority of Rossetti's admirers only
the
more evident.
It is natural to ask: whence this admiration and
envy, whence this
astonishing success of a book, the
popularising qualities of which in the
sensational, or
in fact, any other line, would be looked for in vain?
In
answering this question as satisfactorily as the
limits of space will
permit, I hope at the same time
to fulfil my task of introducing the work to continental
readers.
Rossetti's poems, therefore, must not be considered
only as the single
emanation of a single gifted individual,
but also as the result of a
movement in which many of
the most pre-eminent men of modern England
co-
operate with our poet in various branches of literature
and art. I
should like myself to call this movement
the
renaissance of
mediæval feeling
, in correspondence
with that other
renaissance of antique culture in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
However, as it has
already been furnished with a name, or nickname
(at
least in so far as its tendencies affected the schools of
painting
in this country), and as the expression pre-
Raphaelite school has almost
become a household
word in England, I must unwillingly abide by this,
in
many respects, inappropriate denomination. The
common shibboleth of
the chief representatives of this
page: ix
school, and at the same
time, of modern English art,
like Holman Hunt, Burne Jones, and Madox
Brown,
might be called a strong opposition against the
smooth
conventional treatment of nature and the human
figure, as we find
it in the later cinquecentists. Most
of these men are, in an eminent sense,
colorists, and in
the treatment of their effects of colour,
certainly
show some dependence on early Florentine masters.
But all the
chief members of the school soon suc-
ceeded in delivering themselves of the
“divine
crookedness” and
“holy awkwardness” of their
earlier
attempts, and to speak nowadays of a man, like, for
instance,
Madox Brown, with his admirable faculty of
rendering dramatic effect and
human passion, as a pre-
Raphaelite painter,
par
excellence
, and therefore elec-
tively related to Fra Angelico, would
be utterly absurd.
Mr. Rossetti was one of the originators and
leaders
of the pre-Raphaelite movement during its ephemeral
existence as
a school of painting, and he also forms
the connecting link between it and
the group of poets
whose aspirations were more or less imbued with
the
same spirit of revived mediævalism. The names of
the two
poets, Morris and Swinburne, who form
with Mr. Rossetti himself the
representative triad of
this movement, are perhaps not as popular on
the
other side of the channel as they deserve. Here,
in England, they
form the nucleus of a strong
page: x
party of sympathisers, which
daily increases in number
and importance. Their influence is also
mani-
fested in the multifarious productions of younger
poets, none of
whom seem as yet to have quite passed
the preparatory stage of imitators.
The only poet
of independent claims, at all connected with
the
medæval school of poetry, is, in my opinion, the
too
little known and appreciated poet and painter William
Bell Scott,
whose first efforts date back long before
the rise of the pre-Raphaelite
movement. It would
be a most interesting task to trace the germs of
this
movement in Sir Walter Scott, Coleridge, and Keats,
and to compare
it with the romantic revolutions in Ger-
many and France. But such a
parallel, valuable as
its results might be, would lead us altogether from
our
present subject, which is the individual poet, Rossetti.
I have
mentioned the whole matter only as the
necessary foil in which we must
consider his indi-
viduality, in order to understand the peculiarities
of
its subjective being.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born in May, 1828,
the son of Gabriele
Rossetti, the well-known Italian
patriot and Dante scholar. Rossetti, the
father, was
one of the leaders of the popular party at Naples,
which he
inflamed with his patriotic songs. He had
to leave his position at the Museo
Borbonico and his
country, in consequence of the disastrous events of
page: xi
the year 1821. It seems that
two lines in his
poems,
- Chè i Sandi ed i Louvelli
- Non sono morti ancor,
in which tyrannicide was preached but too openly,
prevented him from
obtaining a reprieve of the sen-
tence, like many other refugees. He settled
down in
London, and married a lady of Italian origin, but
English birth.
The weary hours of his exile the
Italian patriot beguiled with studies on
Dante, in
which a comprehensive knowledge of the great poet
and
historian is strongly mixed with violent modern
party spirit. According to
him the whole of the
Divina Commedia is the outcry, and nothing but the
outcry, of a political and
religious heretic, against the
established forms of church and state.
Rossetti has tried
to show, with considerable ingenuity, how the
great
work is written in a kind of Carbonari
argot,—to the
knowing full of allegorical illusions
to contemporary
persons and institutions. Those of my readers for
whom
the subject is of interest, may find an excellent
article on Rossetti's
system in Professor Witte's lately
published “Danteforschungen.” For us it is only
important as an indication how to
trace back the
thoroughly Dantesque spirit which was to be of
pro-
minent importance in the mental development of our
poet. How
thoroughly the family of Rossetti was
imbued with this spirit, is also shown
in the fact that
page: xii
the names of one sister
and one brother of Dante
Gabriel became connected with the great Italian
poet.
Mr. William Michael Rossetti, otherwise favourably
known as a
critical writer, translated the Inferno into
English blank verse; and Miss Maria Rossetti has
quite
lately published a valuable elucidation of the
plan of the divine poem. The
second sister, Christina,
enjoys at present a great and deserved popularity
as
a poetess, both in this country and America. Dante
Gabriel was in age
the second member of this sin-
gularly gifted family. His artistic instinct
seems to
have shown itself very early, and according to trust-
worthy
information, he used to draw at the age of
five. It seems, indeed, to have
been always an under-
stood thing in the Rossetti family, that Gabriel was
to
be a painter. He soon became a pupil of the Royal
Academy of
Painting, but never attached himself
to any of its professors. It cannot be
said that Ros-
setti as a painter, is or ever has been under the
in-
fluence of any English artist, with the only exception,
perhaps, of
Madox Brown, in whose studio he worked
some short time. His first important
picture was called
Mary's Girlhood, a sonnet descriptive of which will
be found in the present volume.
Among other important
representations of religious subjects we might
mention
an altar-piece in the cathedral of Llandaff. The
picture, called
The Seed of David, is a triptych, and
shows in the centre-piece the adoration of Christ
page: xiii
by high and low, i. e.
by kings and shepherds at his
nativity; while the two sidepieces represent
David as
shepherd and king, being respectively symbolical of
Christ's
own origin from low and high. The most im-
portant subjects of the painter
Rossetti, however, are
taken from the Dantesque circle. It is here that we
admire
the profound mysticism of his conceptions, combined
with a glow
and depth of colour scarcely surpassed by
the old Italian masters. To these
Dante pictures Rossetti
also owes his position in the foremost ranks of
mo-
dern English artists, a fact which is the more remark-
able as his
aspirations were entirely independent of,
and to a great extent in strong
opposition to, the es-
tablished authorities of official academic art.
Indeed,
of all his pictures, only two, and those of his very
earliest
period, were ever exhibited in public by the
artist. How on such scanty
materials, as met the
public eye, a widespread popularity could be
esta-
blished, a popularity, moreover, which with equal ra-
pidity was
transferred from the painter to the poet, is
one of the mysteries of the
rules of growing re-
putations.
With these few remarks we must leave Rossetti
the painter, and turn to
the poetic side of his creative
power. The two faculties are blended in him
so per-
fectly, that it would almost be impossible to fully
comprehend
the one without the other. Only he who
has been fortunate enough to admire
in the artist's
page: xiv
studio those wonderfully
deep representations of the
noblest womanly types, can quite appreciate the
mys-
terious charms of his Blessed Damozel, who
- . . leaned out
- From the gold bar of Heaven.
- Her eyes were stiller than the depth,
- Of water stilled at even;
- She had three lilies in her hand,
- And the stars in her hair were seven,
or of Lilith, the first wife of Adam, whose dangerous
long hair we
know from Mephisto's description. Such
creations I should call essentially
pictorial; the won-
derfully graphic arrangement in the grouping of
the
different motives, reminds one strangely of the har-
monious effect
of perfect colour and design, and is to
me only perceptible through the
medium of a pre-
vious pictorial conception, as ultimately blended
with
the throbbing passion of lyrical poetry, and trans-
ported from the
visible world to the intangible realms
of thought and sound. I will not here
enter upon a
controversial disquisition of the limits of fine art
and
poetry, a task, by the way, which after Lessing
might scarcely be called
grateful; much less is it my
intention to decide whether such a blending of
two
heterogeneous arts is an advantage of both poetry and
painting. My
wish is not to write a criticism of Mr.
Rossetti's poetry, but merely to
acquaint the reader, as
page: xv
far as possible, with the
hidden sources from which
his inspiration flows. In that respect I hope my
ex-
cursion on the domain of art criticism will not appear
quite
irrelevant to the subject.
Another important element in Rossetti's poetical
development seems to
me his Italian origin, combined
with his acquaintance, from the years of
childhood,
with the treasures of the mediæval poetry of
that
country. The first fruit of this knowledge was a col-
lection of
translations from “
The early Italian poets,
from Ciullo d'Alcamo to
Dante Alighieri, together
with Dante's Vita Nuova.
” This “in all respects
praise-
worthy” book, as Witte calls it, was published
in
1861, and remained for ten years the only poetic
utterance of its
author, if we except a few poems
now and then brought out in periodical
publica-
tions.* The work naturally appealed
to a limited
circle of readers, but made a decided mark in the
not very
rich reproductive literature of England.
What was most admired, and is most
admirable in it,
is the thorough entering of the translator into
the
spirit of his remote originals, while he at the same
time reproduces
in his northern idiom, the finest
nuances of their metrical artificialities,
with aston-
ishing skill. Who, versed in Italian literature, can
Transcribed Footnote (page xv):
* The reader will notice Mr. Rossetti's statement about the chronology
of
his poems, at the beginning of this volume, which shows that his
first poetical
efforts must have been nearly coeval with those of
his pictorial genius.
page: xvi
help recognising the
slightly frivolous, but highly attrac-
tive and essentially southern mixture
of religious and
amorous feelings as we find it in the close
repro-
duction of Jacopo da Lentino's sonnet “
Of his Lady
in Heaven.
”
- I have it in my heart to serve God so,
- That into Paradise I shall repair,—
- The holy place through the which everywhere
- I have heard say that joy and solace flow.
- Without my lady I were loth to go—
- She who has the bright face and the bright hair;
- Because if she were absent, I being there
- My pleasure would be less than nought, I know.
- Look you, I say not this to such intent
-
10As that I there would deal in any sin:
- I only would behold her gracious mien,
- And beautiful soft eyes, and lovely face,
- That so it should be my complete content
- To see my lady joyful in her place.
I might quote scores of other poems of far more
complicated structure
than a sonnet, in which there is
no trace of that uncomfortable
straight-waistcoat feel-
ing which one never loses in so many
translations.
But still more we are struck with the perfect
conge-
niality of author and translator in Dante's Vita Nuova.
Here the
continuous equal flow of concentrated feel-
ing gave Rossetti an opportunity
of rendering all
the peculiarities and mediæval quaintnesses of
his great
model's style, with a fidelity which almost produces
the
effect of momentary forgetfulness on the part of
page: xvii
the reader, that he is
not listening to the sonorous fall
of the
lingua di sì. I would ask leave to insert here
a short passage from the Vita Nuova, in which Dante
gives the commentary of his celebrated sonnet
- Dèh peregrini, che pensosi andate.
It may be considered as a fair speciment of Mr.
Rossetti's
rendering of prose, and runs thus:
“About this time, it happened that a great number of
persons
undertook a pilgrimage, to the end that they might
behold that
blessed portraiture bequeathed unto us by our Lord
Jesus Christ, as
the image of his beautiful countenance (upon
which countenance
my dear lady now looketh continually). And
certain among these
pilgrims who seemed very thoughtful, passed
by a path which is
well-nigh in the midst of the city where my
most gracious lady was
born and abode, and at last died.
“Then I, beholding them, said within myself:
‘These pilgrims
seem to be come from very far; and I
think they cannot have
heard speak of this lady, or know
anything concerning her. Their
thoughts are not of her, but of
other things; it may be, of their
friends who are far distant,
and whom we, in our turn, know not.’
And I went on to
say: ‘I know that if they were of a country
near unto
us, they would in some wise seem disturbed, passing
through this
city which is so full of grief.’ And I said
also:
‘If I could speak with them a space, I am
certain that I should make
them weep before they went forth of
this city; for those things
that they would hear from me, must
needs weeping in
any.’”
I need not add how greatly Rossetti has, by
his masterly translation,
increased the general in-
terest in Dante's and his contemporaries' poetry in
page: xviii
England, where the
study of foreign languages, and
especially that of Dante's, has scarcely
passed out of
its teens.
With equal distinctness as in these translations we
discern the
influence of Rossetti's Italian nationality
in his original productions.
First of all we might mention in this respect, his
marked predilection
for the sonnet form, which he
wields with the ease of perfect mastership,
and never
applies in its so-called English or Shakespearean
de-
terioration. For after all, those poems of fourteen
lines which we
find in the great English bard, marvel-
lous as the may be in thought and
passion, are from
a strictly formal point of view, scarcely
defensible.
At any rate the expression, sonnet, as applied to them,
is a
decided misnomer. I will leave it to Shakespeare-
enthusiasts
quand même to decide, whether that won-
derful blossom of lyrical poetry, beginning:
- “Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
- Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy;”
or any other of the immortaly hundred and fifty-four,
is a bad sonnet,
or no sonnet at all. Although Ros-
setti, as Mr. Sidney Colvin has cleverly
pointed out,
seems occasionally influenced by Shakespearean
in-
spiration, he happily has not followed the English poet
in this
respect, and his sonnets consist, in accordance
with their innate symmetry
and with the great Italian
models, of the orthodox two quatrains with twice re-
page: xix
peated rhymes,
followed by a pair of terzine. Corre-
sponding with its form, the spirit of
the sonnets
and songs in “
The House of Life” is essentially
Dantesque, nay, the very title appears
racy of Italian,
and especially mediæval Italian ground.
Some-
times, also, these sonnets with their deep, sym-
bolic
suggestiveness, seem to allow of, or even re-
quire a commentary, as the
singer of Beatrice has
added it to his Vita Nuova. In the songs of the
House of Life, we most admire the immediate im-
pulse of real passion and an
adaptability to actual
musical purposes, only rarely met with in
modern
English literature. Italian life and feeling of a very
different
kind has also inspired that dark and terrible
picture of love turned to
hatred, “
A last Confession.”
Here the drapery of mediæval costume is
dropped,
and the violent outbreak of human passion appears
in
undisguised nakedness. But here again we find
that wonderfully local
colouring of southern in-
tensity of impulse as it is only rarely attained
by
poets of our moderate zone. Whether the psycho-
logical treatment of
this subject is equal to Robert
Browning's manner of most subtle
characterization, I
may leave it to the reader of the Tauchnitz Edition to
decide.
Other poems in this book, show that Rossetti
is also well acquainted
with the productions, and
thoroughly imbued with the spirit, of the early litera-
page: xx
ture of his adopted
nationality. Some critics have
pointed out a certain kind of rhyme in
Rossetti's
poetry in which the last syllable of a word of three
or more
syllables receives a sort of artificial accent,
or to use the technical
term, where a proparoxytonon
is turned into an oxytonon, and made to rhyme
with a
monosyllable, like in audiblè shell, (p.254)
promisèth:
death (p. 224). This, it has been said, is an
affected
archaism on the part of a modern poet, and amounts
to the same
as the uncouth license of ancient rhyme-
sters who coolly misaccentuate
words like countrìe,
ladìe, wherever it suits their
convenience. In reality,
however, these two cases are entirely different. In
the
former case, the unaccentuated last but one syllable
confers to the
ultima a weak or suspensive accent
(
schwebender accent, as the Germans call it), which
makes its position in the
masculine rhyme-syllable
quite permissible, and sometimes, indeed, adds
consi-
derably to the sonorous beauty of a poem; with this,
however, I
will not by any means commit myself to
the assertion that a modern poet may
not here and there,
where he intends to produce a particular effect, be
justi-
fied in applying the second mentioned, from a strictly
metrical
point of view, decidedly objectionable kind of
rhyme. A beautiful specimen
of the suspensive rhyme,
as we might call it, is to be found in Kit
Marlowe's
charming pastoral
- “Come live with me and be my love.”
page: xxi
Note: The letter t in the word the in the
first line of page XXI is type damaged.
the last verse of which begins
- The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
- For thy delight each Maymorning.*
Another valuable addition to the variety and
beauty of his metrical
formations, which Rossetti has
taken from English sources, is the burden or
refrain
which forms a conspicuous part of his narrative
stanza.
Sometimes, as for instance in “
Sister Helen,”
this burden is developed into a whole sentence
of
deepest import, which indicates at once the source of
the whole
tragic event.
So much about what Rossetti owes to the casual
influences of
nationality and artistic knowledge. But
what we most admire in his work, is
something which
lies entirely beyond the pale of nationality, and
much
more beyond that of acquired skill. I am
speaking of his wonderfully deep
conception of the
female type, of woman in her relativeness to man.
With
this we have at last touched the keynote of
Rossetti's creative power. For
it is this conception
of ideal beauty, as revealed in womanhood, and
the
poet's ardent longing for this ideal, which form
the transcendental basis of
all his creations. We
always hear the same grand, albeit monotonous
sym-
phony played as in an undertone, whether the poet
sings the pure
love of the “
Blessed Damozel,” or
Transcribed Footnote (page xxi):
* See Percy's Reliques (Tauchnitz Edition, Vol. I., 192).
page: xxii
the frail beauty and
boundless misery of “
Jenny,” the
unfortunate outcast of the London streets. Into
the
great beauties of the last-mentioned poem, I should
much like to
enter, the more so as it is almost the only
utterance of Rossetti's genius
in which he shows a
strong sympathetic perception of the sufferings
and
struggles of our own modern life. But I am afraid of
having exceeded
already the limits of an introductory
essay, and will, therefore, no longer
detain the reader
from making himself the acquaintance of a deep
and
original mind, which I hope, after my remarks, will
be no more an
utter stranger to him.
F. HÜFFER.
London, December 1873.
page: [xxiii]
page: [xxvii]
POEMS.
page: [xxviii]
[Many poems in this volume were written between 1847 and
1853.
Others are of recent date, and a few belong to the inter-
vening period. It
has been thought unnecessary to specify the
earlier work, as nothing is
included which the author believes to
be immature.]
page: [xxix]
Manuscript Addition: The alterations and additions in / writing are those which are to have
effect / when next the “Poems” are re-issued. / (s
d) D. G. R. 1881 /
P.P. 3, 7, 8, 13, 45, 83, 119, 123, 127, 136, / 137, 139,
140, 142, 161, 188, 194, 274.
Editorial Description: DGR's note on the textual revisions and corrections
page: [xxx]
page: [1]
- The blessed damozel leaned out
- From the gold bar of Heaven;
- Her eyes were deeper than the depth
- Of waters stilled at even;
- She had three lilies in her hand,
- And the stars in her hair were seven.
- Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
- No wrought flowers did adorn,
- But a white rose of Mary's gift,
-
10 For service meetly worn;
- Her hair that lay along her back
- Was yellow like ripe corn.
- Herseemed she scarce had been a day
- One of God's choristers;
page: 2
- The wonder was not yet quite gone
- From that still look of hers;
- Albeit, to them she left, her day
- Had counted as ten years.
- (To one, it is ten years of years.
-
20 . . . Yet now, and in this place,
- Surely she leaned o'er me—her hair
- Fell all about my face. . . .
- Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
- The whole year sets apace.)
- It was the rampart of God's house
- That she was standing on;
- By God built over the sheer depth
- The which is Space begun;
- So high, that looking downward thence
-
30 She scarce could see the sun.
- It lies in Heaven, across the flood
- Of ether, as a bridge.
- Beneath, the tides of day and night
- With flame and darkness ridge
- The void, as low as where this earth
- Spins like a fretful midge.
page: 3
Manuscript Addition: To be altered to / “Their heart-remembered names”
Editorial Description: DGR's alteration to line 40
Manuscript Addition: but myself prefer the present reading
Editorial Description: William Sharp's note to DGR's correction
- Around her, lovers, newly met
- 'Mid deathless love's acclaims,
- Spoke evermore among themselves
-
40 Their rapturous new names;
*
- And the souls mounting up to God
- Went by her like thin flames.
- And still she bowed herself and stooped
- Out of the circling charm;
- Until her bosom must have made
- The bar she leaned on warm,
- And the lilies lay as if asleep
- Along her bended arm.
- From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
-
50 Time like a pulse shake fierce
- Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
- Within the gulf to pierce
- Its path; and now she spoke as when
- The stars sang in their spheres.
- The sun was gone now; the curled moon
- Was like a little feather
- Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
- She spoke through the still weather.
page: 4
- Her voice was like the voice the stars
-
60 Had when they sang together.
- (Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song,
- Strove not her accents there,
- Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
- Possessed the mid-day air,
- Strove not her steps to reach my side
- Down all the echoing stair?)
- “I wish that he were come to me,
- For he will come,” she said.
- “Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth,
-
70 Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?
- Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
- And shall I feel afraid?
- “When round his head the aureole clings,
- And he is clothed in white,
- I'll take his hand and go with him
- To the deep wells of light;
- We will step down as to a stream,
- And bathe there in God's sight.
- “We two will stand beside that shrine,
-
80 Occult, withheld, untrod,
page: 5
- Whose lamps are stirred continually
- With prayer sent up to God;
- And see our old prayers, granted, melt
- Each like a little cloud.
- “We two will lie i'the shadow of
- That living mystic tree
- Within whose secret growth the Dove
- Is sometimes felt to be,
- While every leaf that His plumes touch
-
90 Saith His Name audibly.
- “And I myself will teach to him,
- I myself, lying so,
- The songs I sing here; which his voice
- Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
- And find some knowledge at each pause,
- Or some new thing to know.”
- (Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st!
- Yea, one wast thou with me
- That once of old. But shall God lift
-
100 To endless unity
- The soul whose likeness with thy soul
- Was but its love for thee?)
page: 6
- “We two,” she said, “will seek
the groves
- Where the lady Mary is,
- With her five handmaidens, whose names
- Are five sweet symphonies,
- Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
- Margaret and Rosalys.
- “Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
-
110 And foreheads garlanded;
- Into the fine cloth white like flame
- Weaving the golden thread,
- To fashion the birth-robes for them
- Who are just born, being dead.
- “He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
- Then will I lay my cheek
- To his, and tell about our love,
- Not once abashed or weak:
- And the dear Mother will approve
-
120 My pride, and let me speak.
- “Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
- To Him round whom all souls
- Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
- Bowed with their aureoles:
page: 7
- And angels meeting us shall sing
- To their citherns and citoles.
- “There will I ask of Christ the Lord
- Thus much for him and me:—
- Only to live as once on earth
-
130 With Love,—only to be,
- As then awhile, for ever now
- Together, I and he.”
- She gazed and listened and then said,
- Less sad of speech than mild,—
- “All this is when he comes.” She ceased.
- The light thrilled towards her, fill'd
- With angels in strong level flight.
- Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd.
- (I saw her smile.) But soon their path
-
140 Was vague in distant spheres:
- And then she cast her arms along
- The golden barriers,
- And laid her face between her hands,
- And wept. (I
heard
felt her tears.)
page: 8
- Master of the murmuring courts
- Where the shapes of sleep convene!—
- Lo! my spirit here exhorts
- All the powers of thy demesne
- For their aid to woo my queen.
- What reports
- Yield thy jealous courts unseen?
- Vaporous, unaccountable,
-
Dreamland
Dreamworld lies forlorn of light,
-
10Hollow like a breathing shell.
- Ah! that from all dreams I might
- Choose one dream and guide its flight!
- I know well
- What her sleep should tell to-night.
page: 9
- There the dreams are multitudes:
- Some that will not wait for sleep,
- Deep within the August woods;
- Some that hum while rest may steep
- Weary labour laid a-heap;
-
20 Interludes,
- Some, of grievous moods that weep.
- Poets' fancies all are there:
- There the elf-girls flood with wings
- Valleys full of plaintive air;
- There breathe perfumes; there in rings
- Whirl the foam-bewildered springs;
- Siren there
- Winds her dizzy hair and sings.
- Thence the one dream mutually
-
30 Dreamed in bridal unison,
- Less than waking ecstasy;
- Half-formed visions that make moan
- In the house of birth alone;
- And what we
- At death's wicket see, unknown.
page: 10
- But for mine own sleep, it lies
- In one gracious form's control,
- Fair with honorable eyes,
- Lamps of an auspicious soul:
-
40 O their glance is loftiest dole,
- Sweet and wise,
- Wherein Love descries his goal.
- Reft of her, my dreams are all
- Clammy trance that fears the sky:
- Changing footpaths shift and fall;
- From polluted coverts nigh,
- Miserable phantoms sigh;
- Quakes the pall,
- And the funeral goes by.
-
50Master, is it soothly said
- That, as echoes of man's speech
- Far in secret clefts are made,
- So do all men's bodies reach
- Shadows o'er thy sunken beach,—
- Shape or shade
- In those halls pourtrayed of each?
page: 11
- Ah! might I, by thy good grace
- Groping in the windy stair,
- (Darkness and the breath of space
-
60 Like loud waters everywhere,)
- Meeting mine own image there
- Face to face,
- Send it from that place to her!
- Nay, not I; but oh! do thou,
- Master, from thy shadowkind
- Call my body's phantom now:
- Bid it bear its face declin'd
- Till its flight her slumbers find,
- And her brow
-
70Feel its presence bow like wind.
- Where in groves the gracile Spring
- Trembles, with mute orison
- Confidently strengthening,
- Water's voice and wind's as one
- Shed an echo in the sun.
- Soft as Spring,
- Master, bid it sing and moan.
page: 12
- Song shall tell how glad and strong
- Is the night she soothes alway;
-
80Moan shall grieve with that parched tongue
- Of the brazen hours of day:
- Sounds as of the springtide they,
- Moan and song,
- While the chill months long for May.
- Not the prayers which with all leave
- The world's fluent woes prefer,—
- Not the praise the world doth give,
- Dulcet fulsome whisperer;—
- Let it yield my love to her,
-
90 And achieve
- Strength that shall not grieve or err.
- Wheresoe'er my dreams befall,
- Both at night-watch, (let it say,)
- And where round the sundial
- The reluctant hours of day,
- Heartless, hopeless of their way,
- Rest and call;—
- There her glance doth fall and stay.
page: 13
- Suddenly her face is there:
-
100 So do mounting vapours wreathe
- Subtle-scented transports where
- The black firwood sets its teeth.
- Part the boughs and look beneath,—
- Lilies share
- Secret waters there, and breathe.
- Master, bid my shadow bend
- Whispering thus till birth of light,
- Lest new shapes that sleep may send
- Scatter all its work to flight;—
-
110 Master, master of the night,
- Bid it spend
- Speech, song, prayer, and end aright.
- Yet, ah me! if at her head
- There another phantom lean
- Murmuring o'er the fragrant bed,—
- Ah! and if my spirit's queen
- Smile those alien
words
prayers between,—
- Ah! poor shade!
- Shall it strive, or fade unseen?
page: 14
-
120How should love's own messenger
- Strive with love and be love's foe?
- Master, nay! If thus, in her,
- Sleep a wedded heart should show,—
- Silent let mine image go,
- Its old share
- Of thy spell-bound air to know.
- Like a vapour wan and mute,
- Like a flame, so let it pass;
- One low sigh across her lute,
-
130 One dull breath against her glass
- And to my sad soul, alas!
- One salute
- Cold as when death's foot shall pass.
- Then, too, let all hopes of mine,
- All vain hopes by night and day,
- Slowly at thy summoning sign
- Rise up pallid and obey.
- Dreams, if this is thus, were they:—
- Be they thine,
-
140 And to dreamland pine away.
page: 15
- Yet from old time, life, not death,
- Master, in thy rule is rife:
- Lo! through thee, with mingling breath,
- Adam woke beside his wife.
- O Love bring me so, for strife,
- Force and faith,
- Bring me so not death but life!
- Yea, to Love himself is pour'd
- This frail song of hope and fear.
-
150Thou art Love, of one accord
- With kind Sleep to bring her near,
- Still-eyed, deep-eyed, ah how dear!
- Master, Lord,
- In her name implor'd, O hear!
page: 16
- Heavenborn Helen, Sparta's queen,
-
(O Troy Town!)
- Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,
- The sun and moon of the heart's desire:
- All Love's lordship lay between.
-
(O Troy's down,
-
Tall Troy's on fire!)
- Helen knelt at Venus' shrine,
-
(O Troy Town!)
-
10Saying, “A little gift is mine,
- A little gift for a heart's desire.
- Hear me speak and make me a sign!
-
(O Troy's down,
-
Tall Troy's on fire!)
page: 17
- “Look, I bring thee a carven cup;
-
(O Troy Town!)
- See it here as I hold it up,—
- Shaped it is to the heart's desire,
- Fit to fill when the gods would sup.
-
20
(O Troy's down,)
-
Tall Troy's on fire!)
- “It was moulded like my breast;
-
(O Troy Town!)
- He that sees it may not rest,
- Rest at all for his heart's desire.
- O give ear to my heart's behest!
-
(O Troy's down,
-
Tall Troy's on fire!)
- “See my breast, how like it is;
-
30
(O Troy Town!)
- See it bare for the air to kiss!
- Is the cup to thy heart's desire?
- O for the breast, O make it his!
-
(O Troy's down,
-
Tall Troy's on fire!)
page: 18
- “Yea, for my bosom here I sue;
-
(O Troy Town!)
- Thou must give it where 'tis due,
- Give it there to the