Commentary
Introduction
A major problem in reading the sonnet concerns the bibliographical
context in which it is read. There are at least three: the original
compositional context; the context of its placement in the
<xref doc="a.1-1870.1stedn.rad" workcode="8a-1850" from="[257]">Sonnets
for Pictures, and Other Sonnets</xref>
section of the
1870 volume; and
the context of its position in “The
House of Life” in the
Ballads and Sonnets edition
of 1881. The first two encourage a reading of the sonnet in relative
poetic isolation (as a personal expression, in one case, as an
integral aesthetic unit in the other). In
<xref doc="a.22-1881.raw">The House of Life</xref>
the sonnet is positioned among the group of pieces that DGR recovered
from earlier days (Sonnets LXVII-LXX in the 1881 sequence), all of which figure as parts of
a travelling sequence (as in a walking tour). These four in their turn comprise a kind of
conclusion to the sequence that began in the 1881 sequence with LX,
<xref doc="a.2-1873.raw">“Transfigured Life”</xref>
.
Textual History: Composition
Composed in November 1850 when DGR went to Sevenoaks
to paint with Holman Hunt. Two integral manuscripts survive: a corrected draft made for the 1881 edition in the Princeton-Taylor composite manuscript book; and a more heavily corrected copy in the Fitzwilliam composite
“House of Life”
sequence.
Textual History: Revision
The substantive text in the A Proofs does not
change in later printings.
Printing History
First printed in September 1869 in the
A Proofs
for the 1870 volume of
<xref doc="a.1-1870.raw" workcode="2-1850">Poems</xref>
. It was eventually published
in the
<xref doc="a.1-1870.raw" workcode="2-1850">Sonnets
for Pictures, and Other Sonnets</xref>
section of the volume (beginning at page [257]). In 1881
DGR printed it as sonnet LXIX in
<xref doc="a.22-1881.raw" workcode="2-1850">The House of Life</xref>
sequence in his
<xref doc="a.2-1881.1stedn.rad" workcode="2-1850" from="231">Ballads
and Sonnets</xref>
volume.
DGR did not decide to include the sonnet in
<xref doc="a.22-1881.raw">The House of Life</xref>
until he saw it in
proof in 1881, and just as he was making the decision to break the 1881
publication into two volumes.
Literary
The sonnet generally recalls Keats's
<xref doc="a.keats001.003.rad" link="dead">“To Autumn”</xref>
,
although DGR leads his text to an explicit moralizing conclusion,
which Keats does not do.
Bibliographic
Baum, ed.,
<hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi>
, 170-171
Doughty,
<hi rend="i">A Victorian Romantic</hi>
, 105
WMR,
<hi rend="i">DGR
as Designer and Writer</hi>
, 232
Sharp,
<hi rend="i">DGR: A Record and a Study</hi>
, 426-427