Through Death to LifeDante Gabriel Rossetti1By permission of the Special Collections Library, Duke UniversityThrough Death to LifeDante Gabriel Rossetti1848fair copy corrected1 pageDGRDuke University LibraryRossetti Writings XXI. Eighteen Sonnetswhite ruled6 3/8 x 8 1/8 in.
Commentary
Introduction
This is apparently the only manuscript copy of the poem and is one of the eighteen
bouts rimés sonnets by DGR and (apparently) WMR preserved in the Duke University Library.
The numbers heading each of the sonnets suggest that they are selected from a larger
group, perhaps comprising at least forty-four sonnets.
Textual History: Composition
Textual History: Revision
Production History
Reception History
Iconographic
Printing History
Pictorial
Historical
Literary
Translation
Autobiographical
Bibliographic
Baum,Manuscripts in the Duke University
Library, 14-16, 56-65.
23. Through Death to life. +------- That voice I hear,—how heard I cannot tell,— Although my home is there, seems from my home: There . . . still it trails along and murmurs
“come”; Like the slow death of sound within a bell, Or like the humming whine in some pink shell Wet with the beaded bubbles of the foam, Which bird-eyed damsels stoop for when they roam By the old sea. Wer't not exceeding well To shake my soul out of this tiresomeidle life For any voice calling me any whither? And the new life, than this I have, or had, Cannot be worse: the voice is much too sad. Even to attain calm grief, I'd hasten thitherI may win blessèd grief by going thitherSince here this sought for joy wearies like strifePerchance; sith here such loathesome joys are rife.-------G.(8 m.)Notation at lower right indicating it was written in eight minutes.