Willowwood (corrected fair copy manuscripts, Union College Library) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 Digital images used with permission of Special Collections, Schaffer Library, Union College. Willowwood Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1868-1869 various types, from fair copy to corrected drafts DGR DGR Union College, Schaffer Library The manuscripts are part of the Stillman Collection. The four leaves are torn from a notebook and are uniform; size, approx 21.7 x 17, with individual variations at the horizontal length. Commentary
Introduction

Although the leaves are loose, these four manuscripts comprise an integral document. Each of the four leaves is torn from one of DGR's characteristic notebooks, and all four come from the same notebook. It is clear that the titling and numbering of the four texts was done later, and it is also certain that the original title heading the first leaf, <hi rend="i">A Dream</hi> , signals the title of the sequence and not just the first sonnet.

The manuscripts gain a special integrity from their provenance: they represent a gift that DGR made to the American artist and photographer William James Stillman, possibly in early 1870 when the two men saw a good deal of each other in London (seeFredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 70.8), and probably in March and April of that year when they were together at Barbara Bodichon's cottage in Sussex, Scalands.

This text of the sonnets is notable because none of the four are divided into octave and sestet; indeed, line 8 of the first sonnet ends with a comma.

Textual History: Composition

The manuscripts represent early versions of the four sonnets, as collation shows. They predate the March 1869 printing of the sequence in the <xref doc="a.ap4.f7.raw"> <hi rend="i">Fortnightly Review</hi> </xref> ; hence they must date between late December 1868 and March 1869.

Textual History: Revision

Corrections and/or variant readings appear on all four of the manuscript leaves. But the second two sonnets are more heavily corrected than the first two.

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

On the verso of the sheet carrying the second of the sonnets is DGR's rough sketch for his picture <xref doc="a.sa169.s213.rap"> <hi rend="i">Mariana</hi> </xref> .

Printing History

The manuscripts are printed in S. O. A. Ullmann's brief monograph in facsimile and with a collation to certain key printed and manuscript texts.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Ullmann, <xref doc="a." workcode="">Union College <title level="wrk"> <hi rend="i">Willowwood</hi> Manuscripts (1985)

Rossetti Stillman has written DGR's name at the bottom of the page in pencil. Willowwo[od]<lb/>I<lb/> <del>A Dream</del> <lb/> <ornlb>----</ornlb> The original title of the sequence as a whole,“A Dream”, has been crossed out. In line 5 the text first read “secret certain”, and the correction in line 9 is an overwriting of the original text. I sat with Love upon a little well, Leaning across the water, I and he; Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me, But touched his lute wherein was audible The secret certain secret thing he had to tell: Only our mirrored eyes met silently In the low wave; and that sound came to be The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell, And as they fell at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers; And with his foot and with his wing-feathers He swept the lymph that watered my heart's drouth: Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair, And as I stooped, her own lips rising there Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth. ---- Willowwood II The dashes at the ends of lines 1 and 2 are crossed out with vertical strokes. And now Love sang: and his was such a song,-- A So mesh of ed with half-remembrance hard to free,-- As souls forgotten in expectancy disused in death's sterility May sing when the new birthday tarries long: And I was now made aware of a still dumb throng That stood around aloof, one beneath form by every tree, Each a known shade form, for each was I or she, S The shades of those our days that had no tongue. They looked on us, and knew us, & were known, While fast together, drenched with tears of bliss, Clung the soul-wrung insatiable implacable close kiss; And pity of self through all made broken moan Which said, ‘For once, for once, for once alone!’ And still Love sang, and what he sang was this:— A rough sketch for DGR's <xref doc="a.sa169.s213.rap"> <hi rend="i">Mariana</hi> </xref> has been made on the verso of this sheet. Rossetti Stillman has written DGR's name at the top of the page. A possible variant for the final couplet has been added just below the poem. Willowwood III ---- O ye, all ye that walk in Willowwood, That walk with hollow faces burning white; What fathom-depth of soul-struck widowhood, What long, what longer hours, one lifelong night, Ere ye again, who so in vain have wooed Your last hope lost, who so in vain invite Your lips to that their unforgotten food, Ere ye, ere ye again shall see the light! Alas! the bitter banks in Willowwood, With grief-spurge wan, with shame-wort burning red: Alas! if ever such a pillow could Give rest at all to any weary head, O God alone unknown, the God of good, How should it be till brain & soul were dead? ----------- Even by though the whole soul's death died, ye tried & true Would God that I, your god, could give it you! Rossetti Stillman has written DGR's name at the bottom of the page. IV. ---- So sang he: and as meeting rose and rose Together cling through the wind's wellaway Nor change at once, yet at near the close end of day The leaves drop loosened till where the heart-stain flows glows,— So when the song died did the kiss unclose; And her face fell back drowned, and as it lay was as grey The lips/face grew greyer than the eyes were grey:/ And faded like the eyes As its grey eyes; and if I ever may Find it again/ Behold it more/ How thence I went Behold it more I know not if Love knows. Only I know that ere I turned I I leaned low and drank A long draught of the water where she sank, Her breath and all her tears and all her soul: And as I drank I know I felt l Love's face Bent Laid on my neck with moan of pity and grace, Till both our heads were in his aureole. ----