Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature I (Delaware Museum, incomplete copy of the second revise)Dante Gabriel Rossetti1Text courtesy of The Delaware Art MuseumBallads and SonnetsDante Gabriel RossettiF. S. EllisChiswick Press, C. Whittingham and Co.London1881 April 22proof113-120, 123-1283DGRLibrary, Delaware Art Museum10 point; 6 point leading
roman
172 cm3.8 cm2 cm2.5 cm19 x 12.8cm (crown octavo)
Commentary
Introduction
This is an incomplete copy (dated 22 April 1881 and numbered 3) of the final revise proof of Signature I. It lacks pages 121-122.
The only other copy of this signature is gathered into the British Library proofs of the 1881
Ballads and Sonnets volume. The latter is complete.
Printing History
Reception History
Historical
Literary
Translation
Autobiographical
Bibliographic
I3Proof number added by printer.[Charles Whittingham's printer date stamp, 22 Apr. 81]“And yet a year, in the Links of Forth,As a wanderer without rest,Thou cam'st with both thine arms i' the shroudThat clung high up thy breast.“And in this hour I find thee here,And well mine eyes may noteThat the winding-sheet hath passed thy breastAnd risen around thy throat.“And when I meet thee again, O King,That of death hast such sore drouth,—Except thou turn again on this shore,—The winding-sheet shall have moved once moreAnd covered thine eyes and mouth.“O King, whom poor men bless for their King,Of thy fate be not so fain;But these my words for God's message take,And turn thy steed, O King, for her sakeWho rides beside thy rein!”While the woman spoke, the King's horse rearedAs if it would breast the sea,And the Queen turned pale as she heard on the galeThe voice die dolorously.When the woman ceased, the steed was still,But the King gazed on her yet,And in silence save for the wail of the seaHis eyes and her eyes met.At last he said:—“God's ways are His own;Man is but shadow and dust.Last night I prayed by His altar-stone;To-night I wend to the Feast of His Son;And in Him I set my trust.“I have held my people in sacred charge,And have not feared the stingOf proud men's hate,—to His will resign'dWho has but one same death for a hindAnd one same death for a King.“And if God in His wisdom have brought closeThe day when I must die,That day by water or fire or airMy feet shall fall in the destined snareWherever my road may lie.“What man can say but the Fiend hath setThy sorcery on my path,My heart with the fear of death to fill,And turn me against God's very willTo sink in His burning wrath?”The woman stood as the train rode past,And moved nor limb nor eye;And when we were shipped, we saw her thereStill standing against the sky.As the ship made way, the moon once moreSank slow in her rising pall;And I thought of the shrouded wraith of the King,And I said, “The Heavens know all.”And now, ye lasses, must ye hearHow my name is Kate Barlass:—But a little thing, when all the taleIs told of the weary massOf crime and woe which in Scotland's realmGod's will let come to pass.'Twas in the Charterhouse of PerthThat the King and all his CourtWere met, the Christmas Feast being done,For solace and disport.'Twas a wind-wild eve in February,And against the casement-paneThe branches smote like summoning handsAnd muttered the driving rain.And when the wind swooped over the liftAnd made the whole heaven frown, It seemed a grip was laid on the wallsTo tug the housetop down.And the Queen was there, more stately fairThan a lily in garden set;And the King was loth to stir from her side;For as on the day when she was his bride,Even so he loved her yet.And the Earl of Athole, the King's false friend,Sat with him at the board;And Robert Stuart the chamberlainWho had sold his sovereign Lord.Yet the traitor Christopher Chaumber thereWould fain have told him all,And vainly four times that night he stroveTo reach the King through the hall.But the wine is bright at the goblet's brimThough the poison lurk beneath;And the apples still are red on the treeWithin whose shade may the adder beThat shall turn thy life to death.There was a knight of the King's fast friendsWhom he called the King of Love;And to such bright cheer and courtesyThat name might best behove.And the King and Queen both loved him wellFor his gentle knightliness;And with him the King, as that eve wore on,Was playing at the chess.And the King said, (for he thought to jestAnd soothe the Queen thereby;)—“In a book 'tis writ that this same yearA King shall in Scotland die.“And I have pondered the matter o'er,And this have I found, Sir Hugh,—There are but two Kings on Scotish ground,And those Kings are I and you.“Worship, ye lovers, on this May:Of bliss your kalends are begun:Sing with us, Away, Winter, away!Come, Summer, the sweet season and sun!Awake for shame,—your heaven is won,—And amorously your heads lift all:Thank Love, that you to his grace doth call!”But when he bent to the Queen, and sangThe speech whose praise was hers,It seemed his voice was the voice of the SpringAnd the voice of the bygone years.“The fairest and the freshest flowerThat ever I saw before that hour,The which o' the sudden made to startThe blood of my body to my heart.* * * * *Ah sweet, are ye a worldly creatureOr heavenly thing in form of nature?”And the song was long, and richly storedWith wonder and beauteous things;And the harp was tuned to every changeOf minstrel ministerings;But when he spoke of the Queen at the last,Its strings were his own heart-strings.“Unworthy but only of her grace,Upon Love's rock that's easy and sure,In guerdon of all my lovè's spaceShe took me her humble creäture.Thus fell my blissful aventureIn youth of love that from day to dayFlowereth aye new, and further I say.“To reckon all the circumstanceAs it happed when lessen gan my sore,Of my rancour and woful chance,It were too long,—I have done therefor.And of this flower I say no moreBut unto my help her heart hath tendedAnd even from death her man defended.”“Aye, even from death,” to myself I said;For I thought of the day when sheHad borne him the news, at Roxbro' siege,Of the fell confederacy.But Death even then took aim as he sangWith an arrow deadly bright;And the grinning skull lurked grimly aloof,And the wings were spread far over the roofMore dark than the winter night.Yet truly along the amorous songOf Love's high pomp and state,There were words of Fortune's trackless doomAnd the dreadful face of Fate.And oft have I heard again in dreamsThe voice of dire appealIn which the King then sang of the pitThat is under Fortune's wheel.“And under the wheel beheld I thereAn ugly Pit as deep as hell,That to behold I quaked for fear:And this I heard, that who therein fellCame no more up, tidings to tell:Whereat, astound of the fearful sight,I wist not what to do for fright.”And oft has my thought called up againThese words of the changeful song:—“Wist thou thy pain and thy travàilTo come, well might'st thou weep and wail!”And our wail, O God! is long.But the song's end was all of his love;And well his heart was grac'dWith her smiling lips and her tear-bright eyesAs his arm went round her waist.And on the swell of her long fair throatClose clung the necklet-chainAs he bent her pearl-tir'd head aside,And in the warmth of his love and prideHe kissed her lips full fain.And her true face was a rosy red,The very red of the roseThat, couched on the happy garden-bed,In the summer sunlight glows.And all the wondrous things of loveThat sang so sweet through the songWere in the look that met in their eyes,And the look was deep and long.'Twas then a knock came at the outer gate,And the usher sought the King.“The woman you met by the Scotish Sea,My Liege, would tell you a thing;And she says that her present need for speechWill bear no gainsaying.”