Poems. (Privately Printed.): First Trial Book (partial), Princeton/Troxell (copy 1)

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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Poems. (Privately Printed.): First Trial Book (partial), Princeton/Troxell (copy 1)

Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Date of publication: 1869 October 3

Printer: Strangeways and Walden

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

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POEMS.

(Privately Printed).

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Note: blank page

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M ost of these poems were written between 1847 and 1853; and are here printed, if not without revision, yet generally much in their original state. They are a few among a good many then written, but of the others I have now no complete copies. The ‘Sonnets and Songs’ are chiefly more recent work.] D. G. R. 1869.

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Note: Pages 1-4 not in these proofs.

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Eden Bower

It was Lilith the wife of Adam:
( Eden bower's in flower.)
Not a drop of her blood was human,
But she was made like a soft sweet woman.

Lilith stood on the skirts of Eden;
( And O the bower and the hour!)
She was the first that thence was driven;
With her was hell and with Eve was heaven.

In the ear of the Snake said Lilith :—
10 ( Eden bower's in flower.)
‘To thee I come when the rest is over;
A snake was I when thou wast my lover.

‘I was the fairest snake in Eden:
( And O the bower and the hour!)
By the earth's will, new form and feature
Made me a wife for the earth's new creature.

‘Take me thou as I come from Adam:
Eden bower's in flower.)
Once again shall my love subdue thee;
20The past is past and I am come to thee.

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‘O but Adam was thrall to Lilith!
( And O the bower and the hour!)
All the threads of my hair are golden,
And there in a net his heart was holden.

‘O and Lilith was queen of Adam!
( Eden bower's in flower.)
All the day and the night together
My breath could shake his soul like a feather.

‘What great joys had Adam and Lilith!—
30 ( And O the bower and the hour!)
Sweet close rings of the serpent's twining,
As heart in heart lay sighing and pining.

‘What bright babes had Lilith and Adam!—
( Eden bower's in flower.)
Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters,
Glittering sons and jewelled radiant daughters.

‘O thou God, the Lord God of Eden!
( And O the bower and the hour!)
Say, was this fair body for no man,
40That of Adam's flesh thou mak'st him a woman?

‘O thou Snake, the King-snake of Eden!
( Eden bower's in flower.)
God's strong will our necks are under,
But thou and I may cleave it in sunder.

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‘Help, sweet Snake, sweet lover of Lilith!
( And O the bower and the hour!)
And let God learn how I loved and hated
Man in the image of God created.

‘Help me once against Eve and Adam!
50 ( Eden bower's in flower.)
Help me once for this one endeavour,
And then my love shall be thine for ever!

‘Strong is God, the fell foe of Lilith:
( And O the bower and the hour!)
Nought in heaven or earth may affright him;
But join thou with me and we will smite him.

‘Strong is God, the great God of Eden:
( Eden bower's in flower.)
Over all he made he hath power;
60But lend me thou thy shape for an hour!

‘Lend thy shape for the love of Lilith!
( And O the bower and the hour!)
Look, my mouth and my cheek are ruddy,
And thou art cold, and fire is my body.

‘Lend thy shape for the hate of Adam!
( Eden bower's in flower.)
That he may wail my joy that forsook him,
And curse the day when the bride-sleep took him.

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‘Lend thy shape for the shame of Eden!
70 ( And O the bower and the hour!)
Is not the foe-God weak as the foeman
When love grows hate in the heart of a woman?

‘Would'st thou know the heart's hope of Lilith?
( Eden bower's in flower.)
Bring thy gemmed head close Then bring thou close thine head till it glisten
Along my breast, and lip me and listen.

‘Am I sweet, O sweet Snake of Eden?
And O the bower and the hour!)
Then ope thine ear to my warm mouth's cooing
80And learn what deed remains for our doing.

‘Thou didst hear when God said to Adam:—
( Eden bower's in flower.)
“Of all this wealth I have made thee warden;
Thou'rt free to eat of the trees of the garden:

‘“Only of one tree eat not in Eden;
( And O the bower and the hour!)
All save one I give to thy freewill,—
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

‘O my love, come nearer to Lilith!
90 ( Eden bower's in flower.)
In thy sweet folds bind me and bend me,
And let me feel the shape thou shalt lend me!

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‘Lo! two babes for Eve and for Adam!
( And O the bower and the hour!)
Lo! sweet Snake, the travail and treasure,—
Two men-children born for their pleasure!

‘The first is Cain and the second Abel:
( Eden bower's in flower.)
The soul of one shall be made thy brother,
100And thy tongue shall lap the blood of the other.’
( And O the bower and the hour!)

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Note: Blank page, with a note written in a large hand diagonally across the page. The inscription is indecipherable on the microfilm image.

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The Blessed Damozel.

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;
And her hair lying down Her hair that lay upon along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers;
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.

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( To one, it is ten years of years.
20 . . . Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she lean'd 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.

Heard hardly, some of her new friends
Amid their loving games
Spake evermore among themselves
40 Their virginal chaste names;
And the souls mounting up to God,
Went by her like thin flames.

And still above the vast she bowed herself & stooped
Waste sea of worlds that swarm;
Added TextOut of the circling charm;

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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.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
60 Had when they sang together.

Added Text

( Ah Sweet! Just 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 trembling echoing stair? )

‘I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come,’ she said.
‘Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth,
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
70 To the deep wells of light;

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We will step down as to a stream,
And bathe there in God's sight.

‘We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
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
80 That living mystic tree,
Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be,
While every leaf that His plumes touch
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,
90 Or some new thing to know.’

Added Text

( 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?)

Deleted Text

( Ah Sweet! Just now, in that bird's song,
Strove not her accents there,
Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the midday air,
Was she not stepping to my side
Down all the trembling stair?)

Note: Pages 19-20 not in these proofs.

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Love's Nocturn Nocturn .

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 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.

There the dreams are multitudes:
Some whose bouyance waits not 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.

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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.

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.

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50Master, it is 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?

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
70 Feel 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.

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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 man's my love to her,
90 And achieve
Strength that shall not grieve or err.

Wheresoe'er my sleep 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.

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.

Note: Pages 25-26 not in these proofs.

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Note: handwritten deletion symbol in right margin, next to epigraph

The Burden of Nineveh

‘BURDEN. Heavy calamity; The chorus of a song.’— Dictionary.

IN our Museum galleries
To-day I lingered o'er the prize
Dead Greece vouchsafes to living eyes,—
Her Art for ever in fresh wise
From hour to hour rejoicing me.
Sighing I turned at last to win
Once more the London dirt and din;
And as I made the swing-door spin
And issued, they were hoisting in
10 A wingèd beast from Nineveh.

A human face the creature wore,
And hoofs behind and hoofs before,
And flanks with dark runes fretted o'er.
'Twas bull, 'twas mitred Minotaur,
A dead disbowelled mystery;
The mummy of a buried faith
Stark from the charnel without scathe,
Its wings stood for the light to bathe,—
Such fossil cerements as might swathe
20 The very corpse of Nineveh.

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The print of its first rush-wrapping,
Wound ere it dried, still ribbed the thing.
What song did the brown maidens sing,
From purple mouths alternating,
When that was woven languidly?
What vows, what rites, what prayers preferr'd,
What songs has the strange image heard?
In what blind vigil stood interr'd
For ages, till an English word
30 Broke silence first at Nineveh?

Oh when upon each sculptured court,
Where even the wind might not resort,—
O'er which Time passed, of like import
With the wild Arab boys at sport,—
A living face looked in to see:—
Oh seemed it not—the spell once broke—
As though the carven warriors woke,
As though the shaft the string forsook,
The cymbals clashed, the chariots shook,
40 And there was life in Nineveh?

On London stones our sun anew
The beast's recovered shadow threw.
(No shade that plague of darkness knew,
No light, no shade, while older grew
By ages the old earth and sea.)
Lo thou! could all thy priests have shown
Such proof to make thy godhead known?

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Note: handwritten deletion symbol in right margin next to footnote
From their dead Past thou liv'st alone;
And still thy shadow is thine own
50 Even as of yore in Nineveh.

That day whereof we keep record,
When near thy city-gates the Lord
Sheltered his Jonah with a gourd,
This sun, (I said) here present, pour'd
Even thus this shadow that I see.
This shadow has been shed the same
From sun and moon,—from lamps which came
For prayer,—from fifteen days of flame,
The last, while smouldered to a name
60 Sardanapalus' Nineveh.

Within thy shadow, haply, once
Sennacherib has knelt, whose sons
Smote him between the altar-stones:
Or pale Semiramis her zones
Of gold, her incense brought to thee,
In love for grace, in war for aid:....
Ay, and who else?....till 'neath thy shade
Within his trenches newly made
Last year the Christian knelt and pray'd—
70 Not to thy strength—in Nineveh.*

Transcribed Footnote (page 29):

* During the excavations, the Tiyari workmen held their services in the shadow of the great bulls. ( Layard's Nineveh, ch.ix.) This poem was written when the sculptures were first brought to England.

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Note: handwritten deletion symbol in right margin next to line 82, comma insertion mark in left margin of same line

Now, thou poor god, within this hall
Where the blank windows blind the wall
From pedestal to pedestal,
The kind of light shall on thee fall
Which London takes the day to be:
While school-foundations in the act
Of holiday, three files compact,
Shall learn to view thee as a fact
Connected with that zealous tract:
80 ‘Rome,—Babylon and Nineveh.’

Deemed they of this, those worshippers,
When , in some mythic chain of verse ,
Which man shall not again rehearse,
The faces of thy ministers
Yearned pale with bitter ecstasy?
Greece, Egypt, Rome,—did any god
Before whose feet men knelt unshod
Deem that in this unblest abode
Another scarce more unknown god
90 Should house with him from Nineveh?

Ah! in what quarries lay the stone
From which this pigmy pile has grown,
Unto man's need how long unknown,
Since thy vast temples, court and cone,
Rose far in desert history?
Ah! what is here that does not lie
All strange to thine awakened eye?

Note: Pages 31-34 not in these proofs.

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Printer's Direction: Put first line of each paragraph in, to mark the beginnings.

Editorial Description: Note to printer at the top of the page.

Note: Two cancelled draft passages—for lines 22-23 and 110-112—are written (and cancelled) at the bottom and top of this page. Handwritten deletion symbols are in the right margin next to the title (referring to the asterisk) and the footnote. A line is drawn in the left margin next to the first line of the second stanza, indicating where the proposed indentation should occur.

Deleted Text

Lean hither from thy heavenly dais

Into our shadow bend thy face

O Mary Virgin, full of grace!

Deleted Text

How one short ? , thy sleep

Left thee as daylight darkened, and deep

Within thy heart the song swept loud

It was ?

Ave *

Transcribed Footnote (page 35):

* This hymn was written as a prologue to a series of designs. Art still identifies herself with all faiths for her own purposes: and the emotional influence here employed demands above all an inner standing-point.

MOTHER of the Fair Delight,
Thou handmaid perfect in God's sight,
Now sitting fourth beside the Three,
Thyself a woman-Trinity,—
Being a daughter borne to God,
Mother of Christ from stall to rood,
And wife unto the Holy Ghost:—
Oh when our need is uttermost,
Think that to such as death may strike
10Thou once wert sister sisterlike!
Thou headstone of humanity,
Groundstone of the great Mystery,
Fashioned like us, yet more than we!

Mind'st thou not (when June's heavy breath
Warmed the long days in Nazareth,)
That eve thou didst go forth to give
Thy flowers some drink that they might live

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One faint night more amid the sands?
Far off the trees were as pale wands
20Against the fervid sky: the sea
Sighed further off eternally
As human sorrow sighs in sleep.
Then suddenly the awe grew deep,
As of a day to which all days
Were footsteps in God's secret ways:
Until a folding sense, like prayer,
Which is, as God is, everywhere,
Gathered about thee; and a voice
Spake to thee without any noise,
30Being of the silence:—’Hail,‘ it said,
’Thou that art highly favourèd;
The Lord is with thee here and now;
Blessed among all women thou.‘

Ah! knew'st thou of the end, when first
That Babe was on thy bosom nurs'd?—
Or when He tottered round thy knee
Did thy great sorrow dawn on thee?—
And through His boyhood, year by year
Eating with Him the Passover,
40Didst thou discern confusedly
That holier sacrament, when He,
The bitter cup about to quaff,
Should break the bread and eat thereof?—
Or came not yet the knowledge, even
Till on some day forecast in Heaven

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His feet passed through thy door to press
Upon His Father's business?—
Or still was God's high secret kept?

Nay, but I think the whisper crept
50Like growth through childhood. Work and play,
Things common to the course of day,
Awed thee with meanings unfulfill'd;
And all through girlhood, something still'd
Thy senses like the birth of light,
When thou hast trimmed thy lamp at night
Or washed thy garments in the stream;
To whose white bed had come the dream
That He was thine and thou wast His
Who feeds among the field-lilies.
60O solemn shadow of the end
In that wise spirit long contain'd!
O awful end! and those unsaid
Long years when It was Finishèd!

Mind'st thou not (when the twilight gone
Left darkness in the house of John,)
Between the naked window-bars
That spacious vigil of the stars?—
For thou, a watcher even as they,
Wouldst rise from where throughout the day
70Thou wroughtest raiment for His poor;
And, finding the fixed terms endure
Of day and night which never brought

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Note: handwritten deletion symbol in right margin next to line 85
Sounds of His coming chariot,
Wouldst lift through cloud-waste unexplor'd
Those eyes which said, ‘How long, O Lord?’
Then that disciple whom He loved,
Well heeding, haply would be moved
To ask thy blessing in His name;
And that one thought in both, the same
80Though silent, then would clasp ye round
To weep together,—tears long bound,
Sick tears of patience, dumb and slow.
Yet, ‘Surely I come quickly,’—so
He said, from life and death gone home.
‘Amen; even so, Lord Jesus, come! ’

But oh! what human tongue can speak
That day when death was sent to break
From the tir'd spirit, like a veil,
Its covenant with Gabriel
90Endured at length unto the end?
What human thought can apprehend
That mystery of motherhood
When thy Beloved at length renew'd
The sweet communion severèd,—
His left hand underneath thine head
And His right hand embracing thee?—
Lo! He was thine, and this is He!

Soul, is it Faith, or Love, or Hope,
That lets me see her standing up

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100Where the light of the Throne is bright?
Unto the left, unto the right,
The cherubim, arrayed, conjoint,
Float inward to a golden point,
And from between the seraphim
The glory issues like for a hymn.
O Mary Mother, be not loth
To listen,—thou whom the stars clothe,
Who sëest and mayst not be seen!
Hear us at last, O Mary Queen!
110Into our shadow bend thy face,
Bowing thee from the secret place,
O Mary Virgin, full of grace!

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Note: blank page

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Printer's Direction: too much space

Editorial Description: Note on the printing of the space between words "the" and "Pilgrim" in line 1.

THE STAFF AND SCRIP.

‘WHO owns these lands?’ the Pilgrim said.
‘Stranger, Queen Blanchelys.’
‘And who has thus harried them?’ he said.
‘It was Duke Luke did this:
God's ban be his!’

The Pilgrim said: ‘Where is your house?
I'll rest there, with your will.’
‘ Ye've You've but to climb these blackened boughs
And ye'll you'll see it over the hill,
10 For it burns still.’

‘Which road, to seek your Queen?’ said he.
‘Nay, nay, but with some wound
You'll fly back hither, it may be,
And by your blood i'the ground
My place be found.’

‘Friend, stay in peace. God keep thy your head,
And mine, where I will go;
For He is here and there,’ he said.
He passed the hill-side, slow,
20 And stood below.

page: 42

The Queen sat idle by her loom:
She heard the arras stir,
And looked up sadly: through the room
The sweetness sickened her
Of musk and myrrh.

Her women, standing two and two,
In silence combed the fleece.
The pilgrim said, ‘Peace be with you,
Lady;’ and bent his knees.
30 She answered, ‘Peace.’

Her eyes were like the wave within;
Like water-reeds the poise
Of her soft body, dainty thin;
And like the water's noise
Her plaintive voice.

For him, the stream had never well'd
In desert tracts malign
So sweet; nor had he ever felt
So faint in the sunshine
40 Of Palestine.

Right so, he knew that he saw weep
Each night through every dream
The Queen's own face, confused in sleep
With visages supreme
Not known to him.

page: 43

‘Lady,’ he said, ‘your lands lie burnt
And waste: to meet your foe
All fear: this I have seen and learnt.
Say that it shall be so,
50 And I will go.’

She gazed at him. ‘Your cause is just,
For I have heard the same:’
He said: ‘God's strength shall be my trust.
Fall it to good or grame,
'Tis in His name.’

‘Sir, you are thanked. My cause is dead.
Why should you toil to break
A grave, and fall therein?’ she said.
He did not pause but spake:
60 ‘For my vow's sake.’

‘Can such vows be, Sir—to God's ear,
Not to God's will?’ ‘My vow
Remains . : God heard me there as here,’
He said with reverent brow,
‘Both then and now.’

They gazed together, he and she,
The minute while he spoke;
And when he ceased, she suddenly
Looked round upon her folk
70 As though she woke.

page: 44

‘Fight, Sir,’ she said: ‘my prayers in pain
Shall be your fellowship.’
He whispered one among her train,—
‘ Tomorrow bid her keep
to-night thou'lt
This staff and scrip.’

She sent him a sharp sword, whose belt
About his body there
As sweet as her own arms he felt.
He kissed its blade, all bare,
80 Instead of her.

She sent him a green banner wrought
With one white lily stem,
To bind his lance with when he fought.
He writ upon the same
And kissed her name.

She sent him a white shield, whereon
She bade that he should trace
His will. He blent fair hues that shone,
And in a golden space
90 He kissed her face.

Right so, the sunset skies unseal'd,
Like lands he never knew,
Beyond to-morrow's battle-field
Lay open out of view
To ride into.

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His bloodied banner crossed his mouth
Where he had kissed her name.
‘O east, and west, and north, and south,
Fair flew my web, for shame,
100 To guide Death's aim!’

The tints were shredded from his shield
Where he had kissed her face.
‘Oh, of all gifts that I could yield,
Death only keeps its place,
My gift and grace!’

Then stepped a damsel to her side,
And spake, and needs must weep:
‘For his sake, lady, if he died,
He prayed of thee to keep
110 This staff and scrip.’

That night they hung above her bed,
Till morning wet with tears.
Year after year above her head
Her bed his token wears,
Five years, ten years.

That night the passion of her grief
Shook them as there they hung.
Each year the wind that shed the leaf
Shook them and in its tongue
120 A message flung.

page: 48

And once she woke with a clear mind
she would wake
That letters writ to calm
Her soul lay in the scrip; and to find
Only a torpid balm
And dust of palm.

They shook far off with palace sport
When joust and dance were rife;
And the hunt shook them from the court;
For hers, in peace or strife,
130 Was a Queen's life.

A Queen's death now: as now they shake
To chaunts gusts in chapel dim,—
Hung where she sleeps, not seen to wake,
(Carved lovely white and slim),
With them by him.

Stand up to-day, still armed, with her,
Good knight, before His brow
Who then as now was here and there,
Who had in mind thy vow
140 Then even as now.

The lists are set in Heaven to-day,
The bright pavilions shine;
Fair hangs thy shield, and none gainsay;
The trumpets sound in sign
That she is thine.

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Sig. E

Note: The variant cancellation of received line 213 is handwritten at the foot of the page and then crossed out.

Not tithed with days' and years' decease
He pays thy wage He owed,
But in this light of golden peace
Added TextBut with imperishable peace
Here in His own abode,
150 Thy jealous God.

page: [50]

Note: blank page

page: 51

SISTER HELEN.

Manuscript Addition:

“Dis, veux-tu prendre la vie
D'un homme ton ennemi?
Fais en cire son image
Et mets devant feu en cage.
Pour trois jours son nom diras:
Chair et cire se fondra.”

La Souricière aux Sourcières. 1461

Editorial Description: DGR added this passage as a possible epigraph for the poem, and although Swinburne urged him to keep it, DGR decided against the lines (which are of his own invention).