Fiammetta (For a Picture) (Delaware fair copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti Fiammetta (For a Picture) DGR 1879 draft manuscript DGR Delaware Art Museum Commentary
Introduction

This is one of three known manuscripts of the poem. It is a copy made from the earliest of the three, the manuscript in the Fitzwilliam Library. Another fair copy is housed in the book of DGR manuscripts and pictures known as the Wormsley manuscript.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

17 26 24 Hand-written numbers in the upper left corner. <hi rend="u">Fiammetta.</hi> <lb/>(<hi rend="u">for a Picture</hi>.) Behold Fiammetta, shown in Vision here. Gloom-girt 'mid spring-flushed apple-growth she stands And as she sways the branches with her hands, Along her arm the sundered bloom falls sheer, In separate petals shed, each like a tear; While from the quivering bough the bird expands His wings. And lo! thy spirit understands Life shaken & shower'd & flown, & Death drawn near. All stirs with change. Her garments beat the air: The angel circling round her aureole Shimmers in flight against the tree's grey bole: While she, with reassuring eyes most fair, A presage and a promise stands; as 'twere On Death's dark storm the rainbow of the Soul. --------------