Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature M (Delaware Museum, first author's proof, copy 2, revise)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of publication: 1881 April 28
Publisher: F. S. Ellis
Printer: Chiswick Press, C. Whittingham and Co.
Issue: 2

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

Image of page [161] page: [161]
Sig. M
Manuscript Addition: 2
Editorial Description: Printer's proof number added in upper left.
Manuscript Addition: House of Life / Complete
Editorial Description: Printer's notation.
Manuscript Addition: [Charles Whittingham's printer date stamp, 28 Apr.81]
  • A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
  • Memorial from the Soul's eternity
  • To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
  • Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
  • Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
  • Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
  • As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
  • Its flowering crest impearled and orient.
  • A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
  • 10 The soul,—its converse, to what Power 'tis due:
  • Whether for tribute to the august appeals
  • Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,
  • It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,
  • In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.
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Note: blank page
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PART I. YOUTH AND CHANGE.
SONNET I.



LOVE ENTHRONED.
  • I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:—
  • Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes up-
  • cast;
  • And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past
  • To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;
  • And Youth, with still some single golden hair
  • Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last
  • Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
  • And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.
  • Love's throne was not with these; but far above
  • 10 All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
  • He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;
  • Though Truth foreknow Love's heart, and Hope
  • foretell,
  • And Fame be for Love's sake desirable,
  • And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love.
Image of page 164 page: 164
SONNET II.



BRIDAL BIRTH.
  • As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and first
  • The mother looks upon the newborn child,
  • Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled
  • When her soul knew at length the Love it nurs'd.
  • Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
  • And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
  • Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
  • Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.
  • Now, shadowed by his wings, our faces yearn
  • 10 Together, as his fullgrown feet now range
  • The grove, and his warm hands our couch
  • prepare:
  • Till to his song our bodiless souls in turn
  • Be born his children, when Death's nuptial change
  • Leaves us for light the halo of his hair.
Image of page 165 page: 165
SONNET III.



LOVE'S TESTAMENT.
  • O thou who at Love's hour ecstatically
  • Unto my heart dost evermore present,
  • Clothed with his fire, thy heart his testament;
  • Whom I have neared and felt thy breath to be
  • The inmost incense of his sanctuary;
  • Who without speech hast owned him, and, intent
  • Upon his will, thy life with mine hast blent,
  • And murmured, “I am thine, thou'rt one with me!”
  • O what from thee the grace, to me the prize,
  • 10 And what to Love the glory,—when the whole
  • Of the deep stair thou tread'st to the dim shoal
  • And weary water of the place of sighs,
  • And there dost work deliverance, as thine eyes
  • Draw up my prisoned spirit to thy soul!
Image of page 166 page: 166
SONNET IV.



LOVESIGHT.
  • When do I see thee most, beloved one?
  • When in the light the spirits of mine eyes
  • Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
  • The worship of that Love through thee made known?
  • Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)
  • Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies
  • Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,
  • And my soul only sees thy soul its own?
  • O love, my love! if I no more should see
  • 10Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
  • Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—
  • How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope
  • The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
  • The wind of Death's imperishable wing?
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SONNET V.



HEART'S HOPE.
  • By what word's power, the key of paths untrod,
  • Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,
  • Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore
  • Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?
  • For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,
  • Lady, I fain would tell how evermore
  • Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor
  • Thee from myself, neither our love from God.
  • Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
  • 10 Draw from one loving heart such evidence
  • As to all hearts all things shall signify;
  • Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense
  • As instantaneous penetrating sense,
  • In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.
Image of page 168 page: 168
SONNET VI.



THE KISS.
  • What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
  • Or seizure of malign vicissitude
  • Can rob this body of honour, or denude
  • This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
  • For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
  • With these my lips such consonant interlude
  • As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
  • The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.
  • I was a child beneath her touch,—a man
  • 10 When breast to breast we clung, even I and she,—
  • A spirit when her spirit looked through me,—
  • A god when all our life-breath met to fan
  • Our life-blood, till love's emulous ardours ran,
  • Fire within fire, desire in deity.
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SONNET VII.



SUPREME SURRENDER.
  • To all the spirits of Love that wander by
  • Along his love-sown harvest-field of sleep
  • My lady lies apparent; and the deep
  • Calls to the deep; and no man sees but I.
  • The bliss so long afar, at length so nigh,
  • Rests there attained. Methinks proud Love must
  • weep
  • When Fate's control doth from his harvest reap
  • The sacred hour for which the years did sigh.
  • First touched, the hand now warm around my neck
  • 10 Taught memory long to mock desire: and lo!
  • Across my breast the abandoned hair doth flow,
  • Where one shorn tress long stirred the longing ache:
  • And next the heart that trembled for its sake
  • Lies the queen-heart in sovereign overthrow.
Image of page 170 page: 170
SONNET VIII.



LOVE'S LOVERS.
  • Some ladies love the jewels in Love's zone
  • And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
  • In idle scornful hours he flings away;
  • And some that listen to his lute's soft tone
  • Do love to vaunt the silver praise their own;
  • Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they
  • Who kissed his wings which brought him yester-
  • day
  • And thank his wings to-day that he is flown.
  • My lady only loves the heart of Love:
  • 10 Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee
  • His bower of unimagined flower and tree:
  • There kneels he now, and all-anhungered of
  • Thine eyes grey-lit in shadowing hair above,
  • Seals with thy mouth his immortality.
Image of page 171 page: 171
SONNET IX.



PASSION AND WORSHIP.
  • One flame-winged brought a white-winged harp—
  • player
  • Even where my lady and I lay all alone;
  • Saying: “Behold, this minstrel is unknown;
  • Bid him depart, for I am minstrel here:
  • Only my strains are to Love's dear ones dear.”
  • Then said I: “Through thine hautboy's rap-
  • turous tone
  • Unto my lady still this harp makes moan,
  • And still she deems the cadence deep and clear.”
  • Then said my lady: “Thou art Passion of Love,
  • 10 And this Love's Worship: both he plights to me.
  • Thy mastering music walks the sunlit sea:
  • But where wan water trembles in the grove
  • And the wan moon is all the light thereof,
  • This harp still makes my name its voluntary.”
Image of page 172 page: 172
SONNET X.



THE PORTRAIT.
  • O Lord of all compassionate control,
  • O Love! let this my lady's picture glow
  • Under my hand to praise her name, and show
  • Even of her inner self the perfect whole:
  • That he who seeks her beauty's furthest goal,
  • Beyond the light that the sweet glances throw
  • And refluent wave of the sweet smile, may know
  • The very sky and sea-line of her soul.
  • Lo! it is done. Above the enthroning throat
  • 10 The mouth's mould testifies of voice and kiss,
  • The shadowed eyes remember and foresee.
  • Her face is made her shrine. Let all men note
  • That in all years (O Love, thy gift is this!)
  • They that would look on her must come to me.
Image of page 173 page: 173
SONNET XI.



THE LOVE-LETTER.
  • Warmed by her hand and shadowed by her hair
  • As close she leaned and poured her heart through
  • thee,
  • Whereof the articulate throbs accompany
  • The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness
  • fair,—
  • Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware,—
  • Oh let thy silent song disclose to me
  • That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree
  • Like married music in Love's answering air.
  • Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought,
  • 10 Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd,
  • And her breast's secrets peered into her breast;
  • When, through eyes raised an instant, her soul
  • sought
  • My soul, and from the sudden confluence caught
  • The words that made her love the loveliest.
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SONNET XII.



THE LOVERS' WALK.
  • Sweet twining hedgeflowers wind-stirred in no wise
  • On this June day; and hand that clings in
  • hand:—
  • Still glades; and meeting faces scarcely fann'd:—
  • An osier-odoured stream that draws the skies
  • Deep to its heart; and mirrored eyes in eyes:—
  • Fresh hourly wonder o'er the Summer land
  • Of light and cloud; and two souls softly spann'd
  • With one o'erarching heaven of smiles and sighs:—
  • Even such their path, whose bodies lean unto
  • 10 Each other's visible sweetness amorously,—
  • Whose passionate hearts lean by Love's high
  • decree
  • Together on his heart for ever true,
  • As the cloud-foaming firmamental blue
  • Rest on the blue line of a foamless sea.
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SONNET XIII.



YOUTH'S ANTIPHONY.
  • “I love you, sweet: how can you ever learn
  • How much I love you?” “You I love even so,
  • And so I learn it.” “Sweet, you cannot know
  • How fair you are.” “If fair enough to earn
  • Your love, so much is all my love's concern.”
  • “My love grows hourly, sweet.” “Mine too doth
  • grow,
  • Yet love seemed full so many hours ago!”
  • Thus lovers speak, till kisses claim their turn.
  • Ah! happy they to whom such words as these
  • 10 In youth have served for speech the whole day long,
  • Hour after hour, remote from the world's throng,
  • Work, contest, fame, all life's confederate pleas,—
  • What while Love breathed in sighs and silences
  • Through two blent souls one rapturous undersong.
Image of page 176 page: 176
SONNET XIV.



YOUTH'S SPRING-TRIBUTE.
  • On this sweet bank your head thrice sweet and dear
  • I lay, and spread your hair on either side,
  • And see the newborn woodflowers bashful-eyed
  • Look through the golden tresses here and there.
  • On these debateable borders of the year
  • Spring's foot half falters; scarce she yet may know
  • The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow;
  • And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear.
  • But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day;
  • 10 So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss
  • Creep, as the Spring now thrills through every spray,
  • Up your warm throat to your warm lips: for this
  • Is even the hour of Love's sworn suitservice,
  • With whom cold hearts are counted castaway.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1