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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Small Notebook 1 (British Library)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1871-1879?
Scribe: DGR

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

Image of page cover page: cover
Editorial Note (page ornament): British Library stamp for the Ashley collection.
Manuscript Addition: Ashley 1410 (1)
Editorial Description: Library identification number
Image of page endpaper page: endpaper
Note: The page is blank except for the notation “Book,” written sideways at the lower left of the page.
Image of page endpaper page: endpaper
Manuscript Addition: ASHLEY MS. / 1410. (1.)
Editorial Description: Notation not by DGR
more about Small Notebook 1
Image of page [1r] page: [1r]
Note: blank page
Manuscript Addition: 1*
Editorial Description: Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.
Image of page [1v] page: [1v]
Note: The page contains various names, addresses, and other memoranda, all written from bottom to top, as in the rest of the notebook..
more about [Addresses and Numbers]
A.C.S. Brit. Hist. Cockspur

Tadima(?) 4 C. Sq. S2

Mrs. Rispell 3 Little St. Andrew St.

Michele Fresco Aged 19

1 Grove Cottage Northend

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Image of page [2r] page: [2r]
Manuscript Addition: 2
Editorial Description: Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.
more about [Beauty and Artist]
the ideal miracle of whose beauty

should might suffice to make small men

great in art

and would must as it would have made the greatest [greater]

these poor sentence is pages are are offered
Image of page [2v] page: [2v]
more about [Dead Days]
What thing so pitiable

as poor dead days?
more about Love Enthroned
  • and passionate youth
  • In dreams of love with some
  • strong golden hair
  • Still to his shoulder clinging
Image of page [3r] page: [3r]
Manuscript Addition: 3
Editorial Description: Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.
more about Hope Overtaken
  • I deemed the raiment of
  • my Hope was grey
  • So far I viewed her
Editorial Description: There is an x mark above the first word (“How”) in the next line.
more about Soothsay
  • How callous is the clock
  • with its last stroke
Image of page [3v] page: [3v]
Note: The second scrap on this page is marked with an “X”.
more about [Love and Absence]
Sweet love, but O dread loving

              after love

In absence!           (5)
more about [Painful Life]
Short life made long with pain
more about [Youth]
Youth's sweet well-being

bien être
Editorial Description: An “x” has been written beside the word “Short” above.
Image of page [4r] page: [4r]
Manuscript Addition: 4
Editorial Description: Pagination (not by DGR) at upper right.
more about [Patience]
Patience is the only game

for one, but two ca come

to [?] double[?] out of Joy[?]

& two can play at that
more about [Revelatory Days]
Days when the characters

of men came out as strongly

as secret writing exposed to fire
Image of page [4v] page: [4v]
Manuscript Addition: 7
Editorial Description: Number at upper left (DGR's script).
more about Equal Troth
  • Not by thy measure must

    thou mete know my love
more about [Lover and Beloved]
           and mirrored so

She in that trance dream & I within

           her eyes
Image of page [5r] page: [5r]
Note: The two entries are written in opposite directions.
Manuscript Addition: 5
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right. There is a circled ampersand on the left of the page.
more about [Address]
3 Porteous Road

Paddington Green
more about [Address]
olden

Harl's Whole Meal Bread

& 3 Albert Mansions

Victoria Street
Image of page [5v] page: [5v]
Note: The text on this page and the next are written upside down. The page on the right (5v) is transcribed before the one on the left (6r).
Editorial Description: DGR has a drawing of a bassinet below the text.
more about Gioventu e Signoria
  • E giovine il Signore
  • Ed ama quelle cose
  • Che Amor dispose
  • In cuore all' amore.
  • Quel che piu vuole [indecipherable text
  • Ancor non osa
  • Ahi piu che il sole
  • Piu ch' ogni rosa
  • La cara cosa
  • 10Figliuola si gioire.
Image of page [6r] page: [6r]
Manuscript Addition: 6
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
  • E giovin il Signore
  • Ed ama tutte cose
  • [indecipherable text]
  • [indecipherable text]
  • Che [indecipherable text] amor nascose
  • Che mostragli
  • amore.
  • E giovine il Signor
  • Ed ama [indecipherable text] tante cose
  • Le rose, [indecipherable text] le
  • spose,
  • Quanta gli dona
  • amor.
Image of page [6v] page: [6v]
Note: The text on this page and the next are written upside down. The page on the right (6v) is transcribed before the one on the left (7r).
  • Deh trionfando
  • 20Non farne prova
  • Oimeì! che quando
  • Gioja più giova
  • Allor si trova
  • Presso al finire
2
  • Bella figliuola
  • Guardalo in viso
  • Senza Più che parola
  • Senza sorriso
  • Guardalo fiso
  • 30 Quando sei sola [?]Guarda a gradire.
Image of page [7r] page: [7r]
Manuscript Addition: 7
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about Youth and Lordship
  • My young love's
  • the lover
  • Of all sweets around, above,
  • Of sweets the spring
  • clouds skies & of all
  • Of indecipherable text
  • Added Textthey cover
  • [indecipherable text]
  • Of strength, of songs, & of love.
more about [Food]
Welsh

Smoked

Salmon
Image of page [7v] page: [7v]
Note: The text on this page is written upside down.
  • E giovine il Signore
  • Ed ama molte
  •       cose—
  • I canti, le rose,
  • La forza e l'amore
  • Per uno ch'è buono
  • Molti non lo sono.
  •   x  x  x
  • Prendilo in braccio
  • Adesso o mai —
  • 40Per più mi taccio
  • Di quel che fai Che tu lo sai
  • Bacilo e l'avrai
  • Ma non lo dire.
Image of page [8r] page: [8r]
Manuscript Addition: 8
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about Severed Selves
  • Faint—like a flower the
  • attenuated dream
more about Through Death to Love
  • labour-laden cheer
Image of page [8v] page: [8v]
more about Sudden Light
  • Hath this been thus before?
  • And shall not this [indecipherable text] of shall this coming night
  • As Still to our hand finds thus this day restore
  • In death's despite
  • And sense, sound, sight, yield
  • love's delight once more?
Image of page [9r] page: [9r]
Manuscript Addition: 9
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about Sudden Light
  • Hath this been thus before?
  • And shall not thus Time's
  • eddying flight
  • Added Textour hope
  • Still to our hand this hour
  • restore
  • In death's despite
  • And day & night, yield love's delight
  • once more?
Image of page [9v] page: [9v]
Editorial Note (page ornament): DGR's sketch of a design for a bracelet comes after the memoranda. DGR has drawn a flower between the dates Sept. 1857 and April 1868.
Note: The first memoranda refers to the poet W. J. Linton, whose parody of Poe, “Part of an Unfinished Ghoul Poem”, DGR copied into this notebook (see below pages [21v]-[22r]). The second notation appears to be an inscription that DGR intended for the bracelet he sketched here. The dates suggest that the bracelet was being designed for Jane Morris.
more about [W. J. Linton etc.]
Linton. New haven Conn.

       U.S.A.
Sept. 1857 April 14 1868
Parelli

5 Greek St.
Image of page [10r] page: [10r]
Editorial Note (page ornament): DGR's sketch for a brooch design is made below the memorandum.
Note: An illegible memorandum runs along the inside of the page next to the gutter of the notebook. The other memorandum, partially obscured, is written crosswise.
Manuscript Addition: 10
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about [Numbers]
[?] 13 — 26
more about The Lamp's Shrine
  • I would that I would
  • find in thee some fault
  • That I might love thee
  • still in spite of it
Image of page [10v] page: [10v]
Note: The text is very difficult to decipher, nor is it at all clear that the first six words, here represented as separated on two distinct lines, might not be otherwise organized.
more about [French Quotation]
—la palis revenants—

Et la crenesse aux

    beaux cheveux flottants

Qui - ne revient jamais
more about [The Moon]
the wading moon
Image of page [11r] page: [11r]
Manuscript Addition: 11
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
Manuscript Addition: x
Editorial Description: An x has been written above the first crossed out word.
more about [Fire]
with the fire put forth

Its writhing fingers of pure

       flame
more about Sunset Wings
The starlings sang the sun

      to sleep
Image of page [11v] page: [11v]
Manuscript Addition: x
Editorial Description: There is an x mark below the first line along the left margin.
more about [First and Last Love]
O happy he to whom first

     love & last

Are but one love for ever!
more about [Love's Chamber]
And lo! his chamber

is thy heart & mine.
Image of page [12r] page: [12r]
Manuscript Addition: 12
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about Sister Helen
   after K. of K.
  • A lady's here by a dark steed brought
  • S. H.
  • So darkly clad I saw her not
  • See her now or never see aught
  • L. B.
Image of page [12v] page: [12v]
more about Death-in-Love
  • The forehead veiled & the
  • veiled throat of Death
more about Through Death to Love
  • Shadows & shoals that
  • edge eternity
more about Barcarola
  • Ahi mè Contaro!
  • Tutto è in vano,
  • Prendimi a
  • mano
  • In libertà
Image of page [13r] page: [13r]
Manuscript Addition: 13
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
  • Ah!—ma—
  • Se si sta
  • Così colà?
  • Non si sa
  • Se non si va.
more about Through Death to Love
  • And winds that sweep the
  • winter-bitten wold
Image of page [13v] page: [13v]
more about [Fragment: Thou that beyond the real self doth see]
  • Added TextThou that
  • If once beyond thy real
  • self dost see
  • A self Ideal, bid thine
  • heart beware
more about Through Death to Love
  • What angel shadowed door
  • Or threshold of what wind-fanned
  • threshing floor
    • Image of page [14r] page: [14r]
    Manuscript Addition: 14
    Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
  • Or a threshold of wing-winnowed
  • threshing floor
  • Hath known Hath such life guests as are the feet of Love
more about Love Enthroned
Deleted Text
  • And Youth with one bright
  • spray of golden hair
  • Still to his shoulder clinging
  • since that last
  • Embrace wherein his sweet
  • love held him fast
Image of page [14v] page: [14v]
more about The Lover's Walk
  • As on the white floaming blue of
  • summer skies
  • Upon the blue line of the
  • Rests on   a foamless sea
Image of page [15r] page: [15r]
Manuscript Addition: 15
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
Manuscript Addition: x
Editorial Description: An x mark is written after the line “plaintive days”
more about My Lady
For “My Lady”

Her mouth is a perpetual feast

    of love

(Its breath smile, voice, lips &c.)
more about The Trees of the Garden
plaintive days

The haggard hills
Image of page [15v] page: [15v]
Editorial Note (page ornament): DGR's sketch of an architectural scene appears below the text next to the gutter of the notebook.
Manuscript Addition: x
Editorial Description: An x mark has been added beside the word “knowledge.”
more about [Socratic Wisdom]
To know perchance that we

do not know

is the first step to knowledge
Image of page [16r] page: [16r]
Manuscript Addition: 16
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
Manuscript Addition: x
Editorial Description: An x mark has been added below the word “woe”
more about The Cloud Confines
  • The day is dark
  • as the night
  • —These dead
  • And whether they
  • too were we
  • And what it
  • was that they dared
more about [Unspoken Woe]
bleak un-

- spoken woe
Image of page [16v] page: [16v]
Editorial Description: There is an x mark written at the end of the second line on this page and below the word “oracle” in the last line.
more about Silent Noon
  • In the air the dragonfly
  • Hangs like a blue thread
  • loosened from the sky
more about Astarte Syriaca (For a Picture)
  • Oh thou of Love's all-penetrative spell
  • Amulet talisman & oracle
Image of page [17r] page: [17r]
Manuscript Addition: 17
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about The Sun's Shame II
As a great man with whom

years or health are failing

looks on the useless youth

that pass him & thinks what

he would do with their

treasure—so &c.
more about [Shop Address]
Stewart & Brown

56 Eagle St Holborn
Image of page [17v] page: [17v]
Editorial Description: An x mark is written beside the word “streams”
more about Ardour and Memory
Lent—lilies—Daffodils
  • Furtive flickering stream
more about [Shop Address]
T. F. Dupré Esq

5 Fowkes Buildings

Great Tower St
Image of page [18r] page: [18r]
Manuscript Addition: 18
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about [Wine Merchants]
H G. &H Smith

wine merchants

4 St Pauls Church St

Port 48/—

Sherry 36/—
more about [Shop Address]
T. F. Dupré Esq

5 Fowkes Buildings

Gt Tower St

EC
more about this work
Deleted TextClaret

Leroc /65


Leroc of 1865

Claret 55/—

Niersteiner 25/—

Dinner Claret 19/—
Image of page [18v] page: [18v]
more about [A Wounded Mouth]
mouth like the lips of a wound
Image of page [19r] page: [19r]
Note: blank page
Manuscript Addition: 19
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
Image of page [19v] page: [19v]
more about [Names]
Gregor Metheun

Gervase

Maguelonne
more about [Wine Merchant]
Deleted Text

Smith (H. G.)

wine merchants

4 St Pauls Church Yd

Port & Sherry

Image of page [20r] page: [20r]
Note: blank page
Manuscript Addition: 20
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
Image of page [20v] page: [20v]
more about [French Quotation]
Se penchant un moment,

elle jeta les premieres notes

sur la feuille vierge

Ensuite elle empoigna

l'arche [sic] du violon pour

realiser son rêve, mais

avant de découcher

l'instrument suspendu
Image of page [21r] page: [21r]
Manuscript Addition: 21
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
elle reste encore quelques

instants à ècouter l'oiseau

inspirateur , pendant que

sa main gauche c[ou]rait

sur les cordes cherchant le

motif complet. C'était un

mariage des voix de la nature

et de l'âme, - et l'aube d'une

creation mystique -
Image of page [21v] page: [21v]
Note: On this page and the next DGR quotes the entirety of the poem by William James Linton that was published in 1875 in his volume Pot-Pourri (page 23).
  • Said we then—the two then—
  • “Ah, can it
  • Have been that the woodlandish
  • ghouls
  • The pitiful, the merciful ghouls
  • To bar up our way, & to
    • Image of page [22r] page: [22r]
    Manuscript Addition: 22
    Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
  • ban it
  • From the secret that lies in
  • these wolds—
  • From the thing that lies hidden
  • in these wolds—
  • Have drawn up the spectre of a
  • planet
  • From the limbo of lunary souls
  • This sinfully scintillant planet
  • 10From the hell of the planetary souls.
Image of page [22v] page: [22v]
more about [Honest Signature]
  • To say (for once) to prove
  • beyond a sham
  • That I your most
  • obedient servant
  • am
Image of page [23r] page: [23r]
Manuscript Addition: 23
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
Manuscript Addition: x
Editorial Description: An x mark is written above the word “Think” in the first line and after the word “day” in the fourth line.
more about [Remembrances]
  • Think through this silence
  • how when we are old
  • We two shall think upon
  • this place & day
more about Ardour and Memory
  • Added Textthy lifted eyes
  • Where all the daughters
  • of the daybreak sing.
Image of page [23v] page: [23v]
Note: The page has no text, only some doodles and drawing marks.
Image of page [24r] page: [24r]
Editorial Note (page ornament): The page has some drawing marks plus a sketch of a tree.
Manuscript Addition: 24
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about [Tree and Other Forms]
[Drawing and a sketch of a tree]
more about [Address]
67 Harwood

Road
Image of page [24v] page: [24v]
more about The Cloud Confines
  • The day is dark &
  • the night
  • To him that wd
  • search their
  • heart
  • No lips of cloud
  • that will part
  • Nor morning song
  • in the light.
  • Only gazing alone
  • To him wild shadows
  • are shown
  • Deep under deep
  • unknown
  • And height above
  • unknown height
Image of page [25r] page: [25r]
Note: The text is written above some sketches that are only faintly discernible.
Manuscript Addition: 25
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
  • The past is over & fled;
  • 10Named new we name it the old
  • Thereof some tale hath been told
  • Yet no word comes from the dead
  • Whether as bond or free
  • They dwell wherever they be
  • Or whether they too were we
  • Or by what spell they have sped
Image of page [25v] page: [25v]
Manuscript Addition: x
Editorial Description: An x mark is written above the first word in the first line.
more about [Ant, Gnat, and Wasp]
  • An ant sting's prickly at
  • first
  • But the pain soon dies away
  • A gnat sting's worse the
  • next day
  • But a wasp 'tis sting's the
  • worst
Image of page [26r] page: [26r]
Manuscript Addition: 26
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
more about The Lamp's Shrine
  • I would that I could find in
  • you some fault
  • That I might love you still in
  • spite of it
  • But Love our lord Love is just
  • nor will remit
  • Aught of your dues whom most
  • he would exalt
    • Image of page [26v] page: [26v]
  • And therefore hath he made
  • my heart's dark vault
  • He is my heart's [indecipherable text]
    Added TextIn all men's sight unworthier
  • Added Textbeing lit
  • With thy [?] Even with thy loving soul's [?] fine
  • perquisite
  • Of fiery chrysoprase & bright basalt
Image of page [27r] page: [27r]
Manuscript Addition: 27
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
  • Yet will I nowise shrink, but
  • at Love's shrine
  • 10Myself within the light his brow
  • doth dart
  • Will set the flashing jewels of thy
  • heart
  • In that dull chamber where they deign
  • to shine
  • Even in the honour of thine excellencies
  • Proud of my heart to show how rife it is
Image of page [27v] page: [27v]
more about [Poetical Names]
Atheling. Hélie de Saint Saen


Berold Adelais


Hampreston Marnbrull

(real places) Woodbay


Gregor Strath Deavor

Monchensey Monhault
Image of page [28r] page: [28r]
Manuscript Addition: 28
Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right.
Ninian (man's name)

Glenstrae Ardpagowan

Teo Tolzi Rowallane

Muriel Gervase

Pharalide Phar a ailde (woman)

Staith — a quay or loading place
Image of page [28v] page: [28v]
more about The Sun's Shame II
  • Even as some great souled man,
  • deep - bowed with stress
  • Of dark disastrous eld, on reckless passing youth
  • May gaze, and murmur with self pity
  • & ruth
  • Ah me if I thy treasure might possess
  • And Such blessing of mine all coming years should
  • bless
  • That in thy hand speeds to the common goal,
  • Who, with the thought, feels breathe against
  • his soul
    • Image of page [29r] page: [29r]
    Note: The last line of the “Session of the Poets” prose description is written crosswise to the rest of the text and towards the gutter.
    Manuscript Addition: 29