Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature X (Delaware Museum, second revise, 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 18 (circa) proof 305-320 3 DGR X8 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 copy of the second revise proof for Signature X in which DGR makes his last corrections, including two that are not in the duplicate copy of this revise, also at Delaware.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Besides this copy of the third revise proof, the Delaware proofs for Signature X include the following: an author's first proof (partial) with various corrections; two copies of the author's first revise, a a complete copy and a partial copy, both with corrections; and another copy of the second revise, also with corrections. The British Library proofs have a complete copy of the first author's proofs for this signature (dated 6 May).

Printing History

Reception History

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

X The Past is over and fled; Named new, we name it the old; Thereof some tale hath been told, But no word comes from the dead; Whether at all they be, Or whether as bond or free, Or whether they too were we, Or by what spell they have sped. Still we say as we go,— “Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.” What of the heart of hate That beats in thy breast, O Time?— Red strife from the furthest prime, And anguish of fierce debate; War that shatters her slain, And peace that grinds them as grain, And eyes fixed ever in vain On the pitiless eyes of Fate. Still we say as we go,— “Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.” What of the heart of love That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?— Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban Of fangs that mock them above; Thy bells prolonged unto knells, Thy hope that a breath dispels, Thy bitter forlorn farewells And the empty echoes thereof? 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 <title> <hi rend="c">FOR</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">THE HOLY FAMILY</hi>,<lb/> <hi rend="c">BY <del>MICHAEL ANGELO</del> <add>Michelangelo</add> </hi>.<lb/>(<hi rend="i">In the National 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 W 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.

 I have sent in this correction several times. DGR's note to the printer, referencing the correction in the footnote. <hi rend="c">FOR</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">SPRING</hi>,<lb/> <hi rend="c">BY SANDRO BOTTICELLI</hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="i">(In the Accademia of Florence.)</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 by of a portrait by Botticelli for-merly in the Pourtalès collection in Paris. This portrait isinscribed “Smeralda Bandinelli.”

 <hi rend="c">FIVE ENGLISH POETS</hi>. <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-room, 3, Fountain Courth, 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 now home-speech of the mouth of God. <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 desert 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. Six years, from sixty saved! Yet kindling skies Own them, a beacon to our centuries. <hi rend="c">IV. JOHN KEATS</hi>. The weltering 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 praisèd here. <hi rend="c">TIBER, NILES, AND THAMES</hi>. The head and hands of murdered Cicero, Above his seat high in the Forum hung, Drew jeers and burning tears. When on the rung Of a swift-mounted ladder, all aglow, Fluvia, Mark Antony's shameless wife, with show Of foot firm-poised and gleaming arm upflung, Bade her sharp needle pierce that god-like tongue Whose speech fed Rome even as the Tiber's flow. And thou, Cleopatra's Needle, that hadst thrid Great skirts of Time ere she and Antony hid Dead hope!—hast thou too reached, surviving death, A city of sweet speech scorned,—on whose chill stone Keats withered, Coleridge pined, and Chatterton, Breadless, with poison froze the God-fired breath? <hi rend="c">THE LAST THREE FROM TRAFALGAR</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="sc">At the Anniversary Banquet,</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="sc">21st October, 187*</hi>. In grappled ships around The Victory, Three boys did England's Duty with stout cheer, While one dread truth was kept from every ear, More dire than deafening fire that churned the sea: For in the flag-ship's weltering cockpit, he Who was the Battle's Heart without a peer, He who had seen all fearful sights save Fear, Was passing from all life save Victory. And round the old memorial board to-day, Three greybeards—each a warworn British Tar— View through the mist of years that hour afar: Who soon shall greet, 'mid memories of fierce fray, The impassioned soul which on its radiant way Soared through the fiery cloud of Trafalgar. <hi rend="c">CZAR ALEXANDER THE SECOND</hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="sc">(13th March, 1881.)</hi> From him did forty million serfs, endow'd Each with six feet of death-due soil, receive Rich freeborn lifelong land, whereon to sheave Their country's harvest. These to-day aloud Demand of Heaven their a Father's blood,—sore bow'd With tears and thrilled with wrath; who, while they grieve, On every guilty head would fain achieve All torment by his edicts disallow'd. He stayed the knout's red-ravening fangs; and first Of Russian traitors, his own murderers go White to the tomb. While he,—laid foully low With limbs red-rent, with festering brain which erst Willed kingly freedom,—'gainst the deed accurst To God bears witness of his people's woe.