Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature Q (Delaware Museum, first revise, author's corrected copy 2) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 Text courtesy of The Delaware Art Museum Ballads and Sonnets Dante Gabriel Rossetti F. S. Ellis Chiswick Press, C. Whittingham and Co. London 1881 May 6 proof 225-240 2 DGR Q8 Library, Delaware Art Museum 10 point; 6 point leading roman 17 2 cm 3.8 cm 2 cm 2.5 cm 19 x 12.8 cm (crown octavo) Commentary
Introduction

This is a complete author's corrected set of proofs for the first revise of Signature Q, dated 6 May and marked 2b by the printer. There is an uncorrected set of these proofs as well as a second author's proof copy with corrections, one of which appears in this author's proof in print form. The situation indicates that the printer must have received and made corrections while these revise proofs were still in the shop since all three proof copies are dated 6 May and all three share certain corrections from the first proof.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Besides this proof, the Delaware Art Museum library has the following proof copies of Signature Q: an author's first proof (corrected, dated 4 May 1881 and numbered 1); three copies of the first revise, this author's corrected copy, another corrected author's copy and an uncorrected copy ; (all dated 6 May 1881); three copies of the second revise, an uncorrected copy and two corrected copies, author's copy 1, and another author's copy; all dated 9 May 1881); and four copies of a late proof state (none dated): a set of uncorrected proof sheets; a copy with an author's correction; an imperfect copy with a printer's corrections; and an uncorrected copy. The British Library proofs have another copy (partial) of revise proofs for this signature (dated 28 April).

Printing History

Reception History

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Q 2b Printer's proof number added in upper left. [Charles Whittingham's printer date stamp, 6 May 81] <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXIII</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">INCLUSIVENESS</hi> </hi>. The changing guests, each in a different mood, Sit at the roadside table and arise: And every life among them in likewise Is a soul's board set daily with new food. What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood How that face shall watch his when cold it lies?— Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes, Of what her kiss was when his father wooed? May not this ancient room thou sit'st in dwell In separate living souls for joy or pain? Nay, all its corners may be painted plain Where Heaven shows pictures of some life spent well; And may be stamped, a memory all in vain, Upon the sight of lidless eyes in Hell. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXIV</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">ARDOUR AND MEMORY</hi> </hi>. The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring; The rosebud's blush that leaves it as it grows Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose; The summer clouds that visit every wing With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting; The furtive flickering streams to light re-born 'Mid airs new-fledged and valorous lusts of morn, While all the daughters of the daybreak sing:— These ardour loves, and memory: and when flown All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight The wind swoops onward brandishing the light, Even yet the rose-tree's verdure left alone Will flush all ruddy though the rose be gone; With ditties and with dirges infinite. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXV</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">KNOWN IN VAIN</hi> </hi>. As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope, Knows suddenly, to music high and soft, The Holy of holies; who because they scoff'd Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope With the whole truth aloud, lest heaven should ope; Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd In speeeh; nor speak, at length; but sitting oft Together, within hopeless sight of hope For hours are silent:—So it happeneth When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze After their life sailed by, and hold their breath. Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze Thenceforth their incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death? <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXVI</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">THE HEART OF THE NIGHT</hi> </hi>. From child to youth; from youth to arduous man; From lethargy to fever of the heart; From faithful life to dream-dowered days apart; From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban;— Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran Till now. Alas, the soul!—how soon must she Accept her primal immortality,— The flesh resume its dust whence it begu an? O Lord of work and peace! O Lord of life! O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late, Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath: That when the peace is garnered in from strife, The work retrieved, the will regenerate, This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death! <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXVII</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">THE LANDMARK</hi> </hi>. Was that the landmark? What,—the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!)— Was that my point of turning?—I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As altar-stone or ensigned citadel. But lo! the path is missed, I must go back, And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring Which once I stained, which since may have grown black. Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing As here I turn, I'll thank God, hastening, That the same goal is still on the same track. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXVIII</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">A DARK DAY</hi> </hi>. The gloom that breathes upon me with these airs Is like the drops which strike the traveller's brow Who knows not, darkling, if they bring him now Fresh storm, or be old rain the covert bears. Ah! bodes this hour some harvest of new tares, Or hath but memory of the day whose plough Sowed hunger once,—the night at length when thou, O prayer found vain, didst fall from out my prayers? How prickly were the growths which yet how smooth, Along the hedgerows of this journey shed, Lie by Time's grace till night and sleep may soothe! Even as the thistledown from pathsides dead Gleaned by a girl in autumns of her youth, Which one new year makes soft her marriage-bed. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXIX</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">AUTUMN IDLENESS</hi> </hi>. This sunlight shames November where he grieves In dead red leaves, and will not let him shun The day, though bough with bough be over-run. But with a blessing every glade receives High salutation; while from hillock-eaves The deer gaze calling, dappled white and dun, As if, being foresters of old, the sun Had marked them with the shade of forest-leaves. Here dawn to-day unveiled her magic glass; Here noon now gives the thirst and takes the dew; Till eve bring rest when other good things pass. And here the lost hours the lost hours renew While I still lead my shadow o'er the grass, Nor know, for longing, that which I should do. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXX</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">THE HILL SUMMIT</hi> </hi>. This feast-day of the sun, his altar there In the broad west has blazed for vesper-song; And I have loitered in the vale too long And gaze now a belated worshipper. Yet may I not forget that I was 'ware, So journeying, of his face at intervals Transfigured where the fringed horizon falls,— A fiery bush with coruscating hair. And now that I have climbed and won this height, I must tread downward through the sloping shade And travel the bewildered tracks till night. Yet for this hour I still may here be stayed And see the gold air and the silver fade And the last bird fly into the last light. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNETS LXXI., LXXII., LXXIII.</hi> </hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">THE CHOICE</hi> </hi>. I. Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die. Surely the earth, that's wise being very old, Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high, Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold. We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd, Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky. Now kiss, and think that there are really those, My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way! Through many years they toil; then on a day They die not,—for their life was death,—but cease; And round their narrow lips the mould falls close. <hi rend="center">II.</hi> Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die. Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death? Is not the day which God's word promiseth To come man knows not when? In yonder sky, Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath Even at this moment haply quickeneth The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here. And dost thou prate of all that man shall do? Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be Glad in his gladness that comes after thee? Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to: Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear. <hi rend="center">III.</hi> Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die. Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore, Thou say'st: “Man's measured path is all gone o'er: Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I, Even I, am he whom it was destined for.” How should this be? Art thou then so much more Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap thereby? Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me; Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd. Miles and miles distant though the last line be, And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,— Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNETS LXXIV., LXXV., LXXVI.</hi> </hi> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">OLD AND NEW ART.</hi> </hi> <hi rend="sc"> <hi rend="center">I. St. Luke the Painter</hi> </hi>. Give honour unto Luke Evangelist; For he it was (the aged legends say) Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray. Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist Of devious symbols: but soon having wist How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day Are symbols also in some deeper way, She looked through these to God and was God's priest. And if, past noon, her toil began to irk, And she sought talismans, and turned in vain To soulless self-reflections of man's skill,— Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still Kneel in the latter grass to pray again, Ere the night cometh and she may not work. <hi rend="sc"> <hi rend="center">II. Not as These</hi> </hi>. “I am not as these are,” the poet saith In youth's pride, and the painter, amid among men At bay, where never pencil comes nor pen, And shut about with his own frozen breath. To others, for whom only rhyme wins faith As singers, poets,—only paint as painters,—then He turns in the cold silence; and again Shrinking, “I am not as these are,” he saith. And say that this is so, what follows it? For were thine eyes set backwards in thine head, These Such words were well; but they see on, and far. Unto the lights of the great Past, new-lit Fair for the Future's track, look thou instead,— Say thou instead, “I am not as these are.” <hi rend="sc"> <hi rend="center">III. The Husbandmen</hi> </hi>. Though God, as one that is an householder, Called these to labour in his vineyard first, Before the husk of darkness was well burst Bidding them grope their way out and bestir, (Who, questioned of their wages, answered, “Sir, Unto each man a penny:”) though the worst Burthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst: Though God hath since found none such as these were To do their work like them:—Because of this Stand not ye idle in the market-place. Which of ye knoweth he is not that last Who may be first by faith and will?—yea, his The hand which after the appointed days And hours shall give a Future to their Past? <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXVII</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SOUL'S BEAUTY</hi> </hi>. Under the arch of Life, where love and death, Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath. Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw, By sea or sky or woman, to one law, The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath. This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat Following her daily of thy heart and feet, How passionately and irretrievably, In what fond flight, how many ways and days! <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXVIII</hi> </hi>. <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">BODY'S BEAUTY</hi> </hi>. Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could de- ceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent And soft shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare? Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent, And round his heart one strangling golden hair.