Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature X (Delaware Museum, author's first proof, partial copy) 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 307-320 1 DGR Library, Delaware Art Museum 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 a partial copy with corrections of the author's first proof for Signature X. The complete copy of this signature, in the British Library copy of the proofs, does not have all the changes that appear in this copy of the signature.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Besides this copy of the author's first proof, the Delaware proofs for Signature X include the following: two copies of the first revise, a partial copy and a complete copy, both with corrections; and two copies of the second revise, copy 1 and copy 2, both with corrections. The British Library proofs have a complete copy of the first author's proofs for this signature (dated 6 May). The latter were worked over by DGR before these Delaware first author's proofs.

Printing History

Reception History

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Still we say as we go,— “Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.” The sky leans dumb on the sea, Aweary with all its wings; And oh! the song the sea sings Is dark everlastingly. Our past is clean forgot, Our present is and is not, Our future's a sealed seedplot, And what betwixt them are we?— We who say as we go,— “Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.” blank page <hi rend="c">SONNETS</hi>. blank page ✓ Printer's check mark ^ Printer's mark, possibly indicating this is an insert page. A check mark is put in the right margin by line 7, referencing the underlined word “yon”. <title> <hi rend="c">FOR</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">THE HOLY FAMILY</hi> <del>.</del> <add>,</add> <lb/> <hi rend="c">BY MICHAEL ANGELO, IN THE NATIONAL</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">GALLERY.</hi> <hi rend="sup">1</hi> Turn not the prophet's page, O Son! He knew All that thou hast to suffer, and hath writ. Not yet thine hour of knowledge, .. Infinite The sorrows that thy manhood's lot must rue And dire acquaintance of thy grief. That clue, The spirits of thy mournful ministerings Seek through yon scroll in silence. For these things The angels have desired to look into. Still before Eden waves the fiery sword,— Her Tree of Life unransomed: whose sad Tree Of Knowledge yet to growth of Calvary Must yield its Tempter,—Hell the earliest dead Of Earth resign,—and yet, O Son and Lord, The Seed o' the Woman bruise the serpent's head.

1 In this picture the Virgin Mother is seen withholdingfrom the Child Saviour the prophetic writings in which hissufferings are foretold. Angelic figures beside them examinea scroll.

 DGR corrects the running head on this page and the next from “The House of Life” to “Sonnets” (Qy. headlinereplace? Printer's query to DGR. Sonnets (all along top line) DGR's note to the printer <hi rend="center"> <hi rend="c">FOR</hi> </hi> <lb/> <hi rend="center"> <hi rend="c">SPRING</hi>,</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="center"> <hi rend="c">BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI, IN THE ACCADEMIA</hi> </hi> <lb/> <hi rend="center"> <hi rend="c">OF FLORENCE</hi>.</hi> What masque of what old wind-withered New-Year Honours this Lady?1 Flora, wanton-eyed For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and pied: Aurora, Zephyrus, with mutual cheer Of clasp and kiss: the Graces circling near, 'Neath bower-linked arch of white arms glorified: And with those feathered feet which hovering glide O'er Spring's brief bloom, Hermes the harbinger. Birth-bare, not death-bare yet, the young stems stand, This Lady's temple-columns: o'er her head Love wings his shaft. What mystery here is read Of homage or of hope? But how command Dead Springs to answer? And how question here These mummers of that wind-withered New- Year?

1 The same lady, here surrounded by the masque ofSpring, is evidently the subject of a portrait of by Botticelli for-merly in the Pourtalès collection in Paris. This portrait isinscribed “Smeralda Bandinelli.”

 A check mark is put in the right margin by line 7, referencing the underlined words “unuttered” and “soared”. <hi rend="center"/> <hi rend="c">FIVE ENGLISH POETS</hi>. <hi rend="center"/> <hi rend="c">I. THOMAS CHATTERTON</hi>. With Shakspeare's manhood at a boy's wild heart,— Through Hamlet's doubt to Shakspeare near allied, And kin to Milton through his Satan's pride,— At Death's sole door he stooped, and craved a dart; And to the dear new bower of England's art,— Even to that shrine Time else had deified, The unuttered heart that soared against his side,— Drove the fell point, and smote life's seals apart. Thy nested home-loves, noble Chatterton; The angel-trodden stair thy soul could trace Up Redcliffe's spire; and in the world's armed space Thy gallant sword-play:—these to many an one Are sweet for ever; as thy grave unknown And love-dream of thine unrecorded face. <hi rend="c">II. WILLIAM BLAKE.</hi> <lb/>(<hi rend="sc">To Frederick Shields, on his Sketch of Blake's work-</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="sc">room and death<del>.</del> <add>-</add>room, 3, Fountain Court, Strand.</hi>) This is the place. Even here the dauntless soul, The unflinching hand, wrought on; till in that nook, As on that very bed, his life partook New birth, and passed. Yon river's dusky shoal, Whereto the close-built coiling lanes unroll, Faced his work-window, whence his eyes would stare, Thought-wandering, unto nought that met them there, But to the unfettered irreversible goal. This cupboard, Holy of Holies, held the cloud Of his soul writ and limned; this other one, His true wife's charge, full oft to their abode Yielded for daily bread the martyr's stone, Ere yet their food might be that Bread alone, The words ne ow home-speech of the mouth of God. A check mark is put in the right margin by line 9, referencing the printing of the underlined words. <hi rend="c">III. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE</hi>. His Soul fared forth (as from the deep home-grove The father-songster plies the hour-long quest,) To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest; But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above Their callow fledgling progeny still hove With tented roof of wings and fostering breast Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human Love. Yet ah! Like desart pools that show the stars Once in long leagues,—even such the scarce- snatched hours Which deepening pain left to his lordliest powers:— Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars. Five Six years, from seventy sixty saved! Yet kindling skies Own them, a beacon to our centuries. <hi rend="c">IV. JOHN KEATS</hi>. The wi eltering London ways where children weep And girls whom none call maidens laugh,— strange road Miring his outward steps, who inly trode The bright Castalian brink and Latmos' steep:— Even such his life's cross-paths; till deathly deep He toiled through sands of Lethe; and long pain, Weary with labour spurned and love found vain, In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his sleep. O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips And heart-strung lyre awoke the Moon's eclipse,— Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er,— Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ But rumour'd in water, while the fame of it Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore. <hi rend="c">V. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="sc">(Inscription for the couch, still preserved, on which</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="sc">he passed the last night of his life.)</hi> 'Twixt those twin worlds,—the world of Sleep, which gave No dream to warn,—the tidal world of Death, Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth,— Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave, Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave Only the sea?—or did man's deed of hell Engulph his bark 'mid mists impenetrable? . . . . No eye discerned, nor any power might save. When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil Was rent from thee, to whom far-darkling Truth Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief age- less youth? Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?—Hush! All- Hail, Past doubt, thou gav'st it; and in Truth's bright sphere, Art first of praisers, being most praise èd here. <add>Untimely Lost.<lb/> (Oliver Madox Brown. Born 1855; Died 1874</add> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <del>OLIVER MADOX BROWN.</del> </hi> <lb/> <hi rend="sc"> <del>Born 1855, Died 1874.</del> </hi> Upon the landscape of his coming life A youth high-gifted gazed, and found it fair: The heights of work, the floods of praise, were there. What friendships, what desires, what love, what wife?— All things to come. The fanned springtide was rife With imminent solstice; and the ardent air Had summer sweets and autumn fires to bear;— Heart's ease full-pulsed with perfect strength for strife. A mist has risen: we see the youth no more: Does he see on and strive on? And may we Late-tottering worldworn hence, find his to be The young strong hand which helps us up that shore? Or, echoing the No More with Nevermore, Must Night be ours and his? We hope: and he? <hi rend="c">SAINT BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY IN</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">PARIS</hi>.<lb/> (<hi rend="sc">24th August, 1572</hi>. Not 'neath the altar only,—yet, in sooth, There more than elsewhere,—is the cry, “How long?” How hath the right sown there borne fruit in wrong, The wrong waxed fourfold! Thence, (in hate i' the name of Truth) O'er weapons blessed for carnage, to fierce youth From evil age, the word hath hissed along:— “Ye are the Lord's: go forth, destroy, be strong: Christ's Church absolves ye from Christ's law of ruth.” Therefore, O Christ, thine altar's wine-cup is As thine own blood indeed, and as the blood Of thine elect, at divers seasons spilt On the altar-stone, that to Man's Church, for this Shall prove a stone of stumbling,—whence it stood To be rent up ere the true Church be built. DGR cancels the poem but then writes “Stet” to replace it. A check mark is put beside line 5 to reference the printing of the word “stayed.” Sonnets DGR's correction of running head. This to page 325 DGR's note to the printer <hi rend="c">PLACE DE LA BASTILLE, PARIS</hi>. How dear the sky has been above this place! Small treasures of this sky that we see here Seen weak through prison-bars from year to year; Eyed with a painful prayer upon God's grace To save, and tears that stayed along the face Lifted at S sunset. Yea, how passing dear, Those nights when through the bars a wind left clear The heaven, and moonlight soothed the limpid space! So was it, till one night the secret kept Safe in low vault and stealthy corridor Was blown abroad on gospel-tongues of flame. O ways of God, mysterious evermore! How many on this spot have cursed and wept That all might stand here now and own Thy Name.