Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature R (Beinecke Library, first revise, author's copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 © Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Ballads and Sonnets Dante Gabriel Rossetti F. S. Ellis Chiswick Press, C. Whittingham and Co. London 1881 May 9 proof 241-256 2 DGR R8 Beinecke Library, Yale University Tinker 1820 10 point; 6 point leading roman 17 2 cm 3.8 cm 2 cm 2.5 cm 19 x 12.8cm (crown octavo) Commentary
Introduction

This is DGR's corrected copy of the first revise proof of Signature R (dated 9 May) and numbered 2. The revise is especially interesting because it exhibits the transposition of the sonnets on pages 243-244 that DGR called for in his first author's proof, but that he quickly rescinded, as we see in two uncorrected copies of the first revise at Delaware, copy 1 (dated 9 May 1881) and copy 2 (undated), both of which must have been printed off immediately after this revise. This revise is also notable because it is the last printing to retain the footnote on page 241, which represents DGR's gloss on that important sonnet. DGR marks the footnote for deletion in this proof.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Printing History

Reception History

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

R 2 Printer's proof number added in upper left. proof sheet of the Ballads & Songs volume Notation at top in unknown hand. The last revise of this sheet Isent in is not returned, so you have it still.DGR DGR's note to the printer along the right margin. This proof is not finally corrected.In the last revise I sent in, Imade another change as to the sonnetnow standing at page 242. DGR's note to the printer at the foot of the page. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXIX</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">THE MONOCHORD<del> <hi rend="sup">1</hi> </del> </hi> </hi>. Is it this sky's vast vault or ocean's sound That is Life's self and draws my life from me, And by instinct ineffable decree Holds my breath quailing on the bitter bound? Nay, is it Life or Death, thus thunder-crown'd, That 'mid the tide of all emergency Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea Its difficult eddies labour in the ground? Oh! what is this that knows the road I came, The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame, The lifted shifted steeps and all the way?— That draws round me at last this wind-warm space, And in regenerate rapture turns my face Upon the devious coverts of dismay?

1 “That sublimated mood of the soul in which a separateessence of itself seems as it were to oversoar and survey it.”* * *

<hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXX</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">FAREWELL TO THE GLEN</hi> </hi>. Sweet stream-fed glen, why say “farewell” to thee Who far'st so well and find'st for ever smooth The brow of Time where man may read no ruth? Nay, do thou rather say “farewell” to me, Who now fare forth in bitterer fantasy Than erst was mine where other shade might soothe By other streams, what while in fragrant youth The bliss of being sad made melancholy. And yet, farewell! For better shalt thou fare When children bathe sweet faces in thy flow And happy lovers blend sweet shadows there In hours to come, than when an hour ago Thine echoes had but one man's sighs to bear And thy trees whispered what he feared to know. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXXI </hi>.</hi> <lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">FROM DAWN TO NOON</hi> </hi>. As the child knows not if his mother's face Be fair; nor of his elders yet can deem What each most is; but as of hill or stream At dawn, all glimmering life surrounds his place: Who yet, tow'rd noon of his half-weary race, Pausing awhile beneath the high sun-beam And gazing steadily back,—as through a dream, In things long past new features now can trace:— Even so the thought that is at length fullgrown Turns back to note the sun-smit paths, all grey And marvellous once, where first it walked alone; And haply doubts, amid the unblenching day, Which most or least impelled its onward way,— Those unknown things or these things overknown. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXXII</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">HOARDED JOY</hi> </hi>. I said: “Nay, pluck not,—let the first fruit be: Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red, But let it ripen still. The tree's bent head Sees in the stream its own fecundity And bides the day of fulness. Shall not we At the sun's hour that day possess the shade, And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade, And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?” I say: “Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sun Too long,—'tis fallen and floats adown the stream. Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one, And let us sup with summer; ere the gleam Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free, And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.” <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXXIII</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">BARREN SPRING</hi> </hi>. Once more the changed year's turning wheel returns: And as a girl sails balanced in the wind, And now before and now again behind Stoops as it swoops, with cheek that laughs and burns,— So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd With the dead boughs that winter still must bind, And whom to-day the Spring no more concerns. Behold, this crocus is a withering flame; This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art. Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them, Nor stay till on the year's last lily-stem The white cup shrivels round the golden heart. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXXIV</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">MEMORIAL THRESHOLDS</hi> </hi>. What place so strange,—though unrevealèd snow With unimaginable fires arise At the earth's end,—what passion of surprise Like frost-bound fire-girt scenes of long ago? Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo! This is the very place which to mine eyes Those mortal hours in vain immortalize, 'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know. City, of thine a single simple door, By some new Power reduplicate, must be Even yet my life-porch in eternity, Even with one presence filled, as once of yore: Or mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floor Thee and thy years and these my words and me. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXXV</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">VAIN VIRTUES</hi> </hi>. What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell? None of the sins,—but this and that fair deed Which a soul's sin at length could supersede. These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves Of anguish, while the pit's pollution leaves Their refuse maidenhood abominable. Night sucks them down, the tribute of the pit, Whose names, half entered in the book of Life, Were God's desire at noon. And as their hair And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit To gaze, but, yearning, waits his destined wife, The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXXVI</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">LOST DAYS</hi> </hi>. The lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway? I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. “I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?” “And I—and I—thyself,” (lo! each one saith,) “And thou thyself to all eternity!” <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXXVII</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">DEATH'S SONGSTERS.</hi> </hi> When first that horse, within whose populous womb The birth was death, o'ershadowed Troy with fate, Her elders, dubious of its Grecian freight, Brought Helen there to sing the songs of home; She whispered, “Friends, I am alone; come, come!” Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid, And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laid His hands, and held them till the voice was dumb. The same was he who, lashed to his own mast, There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel- caves, Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd, Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves.... Say, soul,—are songs of Death no heaven to thee, Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory? <title> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET LXXXVIII</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">HERO'S LAMP</hi> </hi>.<hi rend="sup">1</hi> That lamp thou fill'st in Eros' name to-night, O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs take To-morrow, and for drowned Leander's sake To Anteros its fireless lip shall plight. Aye, waft the unspoken vow: yet dawn's first light On ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break; While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake, Lo where Love walks, Death's pallid neophyte. That lamp within Anteros' shadowy shrine Shall stand unlit (for so the gods decree) Till some one man the happy issue see Of a life's love, and bid its flame to shine: Which still may rest unfir'd; for, theirs or thine, O brother, what brought love to them or thee?

1 After the deaths of Leander and of Hero, the signal-lamp was dedicated to Anteros, with the edict that no manshould light it unless his love had proved fortunate.

 <hi rend="center"> <hi rend="c">SONNET LXXXIX</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">THE TREES OF THE GARDEN</hi> </hi>. Ye who have passed Death's haggard hills; and ye Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know And still stand silent:—is it all a show,— A wisp that laughs upon the wall?—decree Of some inexorable supremacy Which ever, as man strains his blind surmise From depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes, Sphinx-faced with unabashèd augury? Nay, rather question the Earth's self. Invoke The storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-day Whose roots are hillocks where the children play; Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yoke Those stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, shall wage Their journey still when his boughs shrink with age. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">XC</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">“RETRO ME, SATHANA!</hi> </hi>” The word “SONNET” is missing from the title on this page. Get thee behind me. Even as, heavy-curled, Stooping against the wind, a charioteer Is snatched from out his chariot by the hair, So shall Time be; and as the void car, hurled Abroad by reinless steeds, even so the world: Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air, It shall be sought and not found anywhere. Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled, Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath Much mightiness of men to win thee praise. Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways. Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path, Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath For certain years, for certain months and days. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET XCI</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">LOST ON BOTH SIDES</hi> </hi>. As when two men have loved a woman well, Each hating each, through Love's and Death's deceit; Since not for either this stark marriage-sheet And the long pauses of this wedding-bell; Yet o'er her grave the night and day dispel At last their feud forlorn, with cold and heat; Nor other than dear friends to death may fleet The two lives left that most of her can tell:— So separate hopes, which in a soul had wooed The one same Peace, strove with each other long, And Peace before their faces perished since: So through that soul, in restless brotherhood, They roam together now, and wind among Its bye-streets, knocking at the dusty inns. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNETS XCII., XCIII.</hi> </hi> <lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">THE SUN'S SHAME</hi> </hi>. <hi rend="center">I.</hi> Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught From life; and mocking pulses that remain When the soul's death of bodily death is fain; Honour unknown, and honour known unsought; And penury's sedulous self-torturing thought On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane; And longed-for woman longing all in vain For lonely man with love's desire distraught; And wealth, and strength, and power, and plea- santness, Given unto bodies of whose souls men say, None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:— Beholding these things, I behold no less The blushing morn and blushing eve confess The shame that loads the intolerable day. <hi rend="center">II.</hi> As some true chief of men, bowed down with stress Of life's disastrous eld, on blossoming youth May gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth,— “Might I thy fruitless treasure but possess, Such blessing of mine all coming years should bless;“— Then sends one sigh forth to the unknown goal, And bitterly feels breathe against his soul The hour swift-winged of nearer nothingness:— Even so the World's grey Soul to the green World Perchance one hour must cry: “Woe's me, for whom Inveteracy of ill portends the doom,— Whose heart's old fire in shadow of shame is furl'd: While thou even as of yore art journeying, All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring!” <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">SONNET XCIV</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">MICHAEL ANGELO'S KISS</hi> </hi>. Great Michael Angelo, with age grown bleak And uttermost labours, having once o'ersaid All grievous memories on his long life shed, This worst regret to one true heart could speak:— That when, with sorrowing love and reverence meek, He stooped o'er sweet Colonna's dying bed, His Muse and dominant Lady, spirit-wed,— Her hand he kissed, but not her brow or cheek. O Buonarruoti,—good at Art's fire-wheels To urge her chariot!—even thus the Soul, Touching at length some sorely-chastened goal, Earns oftenest but a little: her appeals Were deep and mute,—lowly her claim. Let be: What holds for her Death's garner? And for thee?