Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature Y (Delaware Museum, first author's proof) 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 7 proof 321-336 1 DGR Y8 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 complete copy with corrections of the first author's proof for Signature Y. Comparing this proof with the proofs for the Signature X one can see that this first author's proof for Signature Y was pulled before the printer received the revisions made in Signature X. This first revise for Signature Y incorporates the changes DGR made in Signature X between 6 and 10 May, that is to say, in the first author's proof for that signature. The first revise for Signature X removes the sonnet commemorating Oliver Madox Brown from that signature. The sonnet does not appear in this first proof of Signature Y, which was pulled on 7 May 1881, the day after Signature X was first pulled. That sonnet does not come into Signature Y until the first revise.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Besides this copy of the first author's proof, the Delaware proofs for Signature Y include the following: a complete copy of the first revise proof; a partial set of a second revise, (comprising pages 321,329-332); and two sets of the third revise, WMR's complete set with his comments, and DGR's corrected set. The British Library proofs have another complete copy of the first revise proof for this signature (dated 10 May).

Printing History

Reception History

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Sonnets (all along top) DGR's note to the printer correcting the running head. [Charles Whittingham's printer date stamp, 7 May 81] <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">ON A HANDFUL OF FRENCH</hi> </hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">MONEY.</hi> </hi> THESE coins that jostle on my hand do own No single image: each name here and date Denoting in man's consciousness and state New change. In some, the face is clearly known,— In others marred. The badge of that old throne Of Kings is on the obverse; or this sign Which says, “Behold, I, France, am only mine;” Or else the eagle that dared soar alone. Even as these coins, so are these lives and years Mixed and bewildered; yet hs each of them No less its part in what has come to be For France. Republic, Empire, Monarchy,— Each clamours or keeps silence in her name, And lives within the pulse that now is hers. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">ON CLIMBING THE STAIRS OF</hi> </hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">NOTRE DAME.</hi> </hi> AS one who, groping in a narrow stair, Has imminent clang of bells against his ears, Which, being afar in distance, still appears Quite close to him because of the pent air,— So with this France. She stumbles half aware In darkness without space for breath. Each one Who hears the thunder says, It shall anon Be in among her ranks to scatter her This may be; and it may be that the storm Is spent in rain upon the unscathed seas Or breaks o'er other countries ere it die; While she, upclimbing always through the swarm Of darkness and of hurtling sound, from these Steps forth upon the light in a still sky. <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? This in oneline small caps. DGR's note to the printer referencing the printing of the revision to the title. <hi rend="c">THE LAST FEW FROM TRAFALGAR <del>AT</del> </hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center"> <del>THE ANNIVERSARY BANQUET.</del> </hi> </hi> <lb/> <add>at the Anniversary Banquet,</add> <hi rend="sc"> <del>(</del>21ST OCT<del>OBER</del>, 187*<del>)</del> </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"> <hi rend="center">(13TH MARCH, 1881.)</hi> </hi> FROM him did forty million serfs, endow'd Each with six feet of death-due soil, receive Rich freeborn lifelong land, wherei on to sheave Their country's harvest. These to-day aloud Demand of Heaven 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. <hi rend="c">WINTER</hi>. HOW large that thrush looks on the bare thorn-tree! A swarm of such, three little months ago, Had hidden in the leaves and let none know Save by the outburst of their minstrelsy. A white flake here and there—a snow-lily Of last night's frost—our naked flower-beds hold; And for a rose-flower on the darkling mould The hungry redbreast gleams. No bloom, no bee. The current shudders to its ice-bound sedge: Nipped in their bath, the stark reeds one by one Flash each its clinging diamond in the sun: 'Neath winds which for this Winter's sovereign pledge Shall curb great king-masts to the ocean's edge And leave memorial forest-king's o'erthrown. <hi rend="c">SPRING</hi>. SOFT-LITTERED is the new-year's lambing-fold, And in the hollowed haystack at its side The shepherd lies o'nights now, wakeful-eyed At the ewes' travailing call through the dark cold. The young rooks cheep 'mid the thick caw o'the old: And near unpeopled stream-sides, on the ground, By her spring-cry the moorhen's nest is found, Where the drained flood-lands flaunt their marigold. Chill are the gusts to which the pastures cower, And chill the current where the young reeds stand As green and close as the young wheat on land: Yet here the cuckoo and the cuckoo-flower Plight to the heart Spring's perfect imminent hour Whose breath shall soothe you like your dear one's hand. Sonnets DGR's note to the printer correcting the running head. Stet this to page 322 4 DGR's note to the printer restoring the poem, after having marked it for excision. <hi rend="c">THE CHURCH-PORCH</hi>. SISTER, first shake we off the dust we have Upon our feet, lest it defile the stones Inscriptured, covering their sacred bones Who lie i'the aisles which keep the names they gave, Their trust abiding round them in the grave; Whom painters paint for visible orisons, And to whom sculptors pray in stone and bronze; Their voices echo still like a spent wave. Without here, the church-bells are but a tune, And on the carven church-door this hot noon Lays all its heavy sunshine here without: But having entered in, we shall find there Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer, And faces of crowned angels all about. <title> <hi rend="c">WORDS ON THE WINDOW-PANE.</hi> <hi rend="sup">1</hi> <add>X</add> DID she in summer write it, or in spring, Or with this wail of autumn at her ears, Or in some winter left among old years Scratched it through tettered cark? A certain thing That round her heart the frost was hardening, Not to be thawed of tears, which on this pane Channelled the rime, perchance, in fevered rain, For false man's sake and love's most bitter sting. Howbeit, between this last word and the next Unwritten, subtly seasoned was the smart, And here at least the grace to weep: if she, Rather, midway in her disconsolate text, Rebelled not, loathing from the trodden heart That thing which she had found man's love to be.

X For a woman's fragmentary inscription.

<foreign lang="italian"> <hi rend="c">PROSERPINA</hi> </foreign>.<lb/> <foreign lang="italian"> <hi rend="c">(PER UN QUADRO.)</hi> </foreign> LUNGè I è la luce che in sù questo muro Rifrange appena, un breve istante scorta Del rio palazzo alla soprana porta. Lungi quei fiori d'Eu nna, O lido oscuro, Dal frutto tuo fatal che omai mè m'è duro. Lungi quel cielo dal tartareo manto Che quì mi cuopre: e lungi ahi lungi ahi quanto Le notti che sara àn dai diì che furo. Lungi da me mi sento; e ognor sequ ognando Cerco e ricerco, e resto ascoltatrice; E qualche cuore a qualche anima dice, (Di cui mi gui iunge il suon da quando in quando, Continuamente insieme sospirando,)— “Oimè per te, Proserpina infelice!” <hi rend="c">PROSERPINA</hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c">(FOR A PICTURE.)</hi> Afar away the light that brings cold cheer Unto this wall,—one instant and no more Admitted at my distant palace-door. Afar the flowers of Eu nna from this drear Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here. Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey That chills me: and afar, how far away, The nights that shall be from the days that were. Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign: And still some heart unto some soul doth pine, (Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring, Continually together murmuring,)— “Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine. !” <foreign lang="italian"> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">LA BELLA MANO</hi> </hi> </foreign>.<lb/> <foreign lang="italian"> <hi rend="sc"> <hi rend="center">(PER UN QUADRO.)</hi> </hi> </foreign> O BELLA Mano, che ti lavi e piaci In quel medesmo tuo puro elemento Donde la Dea dell' amoroso avvento Nacque, (e dall' onda s'infuocar le faci Di mille inispegnibili fornaci):— Come a Venere a te loro l'oro e l'argento Offron gli Amori; e ognun riguarda attento La bocca che sorride e te che taci. In dolce modo dove onor t'invii Vattene adorna, e porta insiem fra tante Di Venere e di vergine sembiante; Umilemente in luoghi onesti e pii Bianca e soave ogne ora; infin che sii, O Mano, mansueta in man d'amante. <foreign lang="italian"> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">LA BELLA MANO</hi> </hi> </foreign>.<lb/> <hi rend="sc"> <hi rend="center">(FOR A PICTURE.)</hi> </hi> O LOVELY hand, that thy sweet self dost lave In that thy pure and proper element, Whence erst the Lady of Love's high advènt Was born, and endless fires sprang from the wave:— Even as her Loves to her their offerings gave, For thee the jewelled gifts they bear; while each Looks to those lips, of music-measured speech The fount, and of more bliss than man may crave. In royal wise ring-girt and bracelet-spann'd, A flower of Venus' own virginity, Go shine among thy sisterly sweet band; In maiden-minded converse delicately Evermore white and soft; until thou be, O hand! heart-handsel'd in a lover's hand. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">FIAMMETTA</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">(FOR A PICTURE.)</hi> </hi> BEHOLD Fiammetta, shown in Vision here. Gloom-girt 'mid Spring-flushed apple-growth she stands; And as she sways the branches with her hands, Along her arm the sundered bloom falls sheer, In separate petals shed, each like a tear; While from the quivering bough the bird expands His wings. And lo! thy spirit understands Life shaken and shower'd and flown, and Death drawn near. All stirs with change. Her garments beat the air: The angel circling round her aureole Shimmers in flight against the trees 's grey bole: While she, with reassuring eyes most fair, A presage and a promise stands; as 'twere On Death's dark storm the rainbow of the Soul. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">ASTARTE SYRIACA</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">(FOR A PICTURE.)</hi> </hi> MYSTERY: lo! betwixt the sun and moon Astarte of the Syrians: Venus Queen Ev re Aphrodite was. In silver sheen Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon Of bliss whereof the heaven and earth commune: And from her neck's inclining flower-stem lean Love-freighted lips and absolute eyes that wean The pulse of hearts to the spheres' dominant tune. Torch-bearing her sweet ministers compel All thrones of light beyond the sky and sea The witness of Beauty's face to be: That face, of Love's all-penetrative spell Amulet, talisman, and oracle,— Betwixt the sun and moon a mystery. Indent DGR's note to the printer in left margin of lines 13-14 get in 2 pageson slip DGR's note to the printer. <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">A SEA-SPELL</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="center">FOR A PICTURE.)</hi> </hi> HER lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree, While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell, The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea. But to what sound her listening ear stoops she? What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear, In answering echoes from what planisphere, Along the wind, along the estuary? She sinks into her spell: and when full soon Her lips move and she soars into her song, What creatures of the midmost main shall throng In furrowed surf-clouds to the summoning t rune: Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry, And up her rock, bare-breasted, comes to die?