Rose Mary (corrected holograph fragment, Bancroft Collection)

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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Rose Mary (corrected holograph fragment, Bancroft Collection)

Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Date of Composition: 1871; 1879

Type of Manuscript: holograph corrected copy

Scribe: DGR

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

page: [1]

Deleted Text

Tall Rose Mary was little May—
Still & tall from merry & small—
When first she read the starry way
By the magic crystal's dark soothsay;
For the spheres hold in a crystal ball.

Her the stars for their seër chose;
Pure must be whoever would see;
And well I deem that never a rose
More pure in Mary's garden blows
10Than the little maiden Rose Mary.

Tall Rose Mary, come to my side;
( Water-willow & wellaway,)
Added TextA perilous road your knight must ride;
And So read the stars if you'd be a bride ,
To say which road your knight must ride
( With a wind blown night & day.)

Daughter, thrice to your mother's call,
( The willow's wan & the water white,)
Since you were a maiden sweet & small,
You' d ve read the stars in the crystal ball,
20( With a wind blown day & night.)

Oft Thrice therein for our own hearts' heed,
( The willows wave on the waterway)
Your father & I would/have bid/have thou so bade you read:
To-day it shall let it be for your love's need.
( With a wind blown night & day.)

page: [2]

Note: At the upper left of the page the text is written over a pencil sketch of part of a face.

Manuscript Addition: (Rose Mary)

Editorial Description: Pencil notation in another hand along the right margin

Manuscript Addition: p 2

Editorial Description: Pagination at upper right in another hand

Editorial Description: DGR has written the numbers 4, 1, 2, 3 beside the first refrain lines in each of the four stanza at the lower half of the page, perhaps as a direction for a repetition pattern should he have kept to this prosodic scheme (which he did not).

Twas With cloud above and wave around
And fast/deep at the core the globe's heart bound/heart of fire at the center found/The [?]
Added TextA The WIthcentral fire at the globe's heart bound wound
Like the last day prisoned underground
Filmed Freaked it was like as the light/thin spring's foam -froth's bubble's ball—
30Rainbow- hued/veiled with a radiant hued through a [?]/shifting/gleaming/[?] misty pall
Like the middle light of the waterfall.

Tomorrow, child, at break of day,
To Holy Cross he fares on his way,
Your knight, Sir James of Heron's Hay.
Ere yet your wedding-feast befall,
For sin that held him erst in thrall
He seeks the high confessional.

The lady lifted upheld the crystal sphere
( Lost love-morrow & love-fellow)
40Round it was as the sun's compeer,
Our earth that caps & turns whelms the year
( And love's life lying low.)

Girt it was with a [?] scriptured rune,
( Lost love-labour & lullaby)
With shimmering shadow stirred & strewn
Like the cloud-nest of the wading moon.
( And lowly as let love must lie. )

Deleted Text

Filmed/[?] Filmed it was as with sprays/oer mists/moon's/the sprays the sprays that furl

( Love low laden Lost love-longing and life sorrow)

50 Centered deep Rainbow-hued with fire & flower of pearl

Like the hollow heart middle light of the waterwhirl

( And love's life lying low.)

Ribbed it was as the sunk caves be;
( Like love longing Love-lorn labour and life laid by .)
A thousand years it lay in the sea
With a treasure wrecked from Thessaly
( And lowly let love lie.)

page: [3]

Manuscript Addition: (Rose Mary)

Editorial Description: Pencil notation in another hand along the right margin

“Pale Rose Mary, what shall should be done
With a rose that Mary weeps upon?”
“ Why let fall the bloom fall dumb/fall dumb from the tree/Why let fall the rose from the tree

Added Text

Mother, let it fall from the tree

And never walk where the strewn spoils leaves be
Till winds have passed & the path is free.”

“Sad Rose Mary, what shall be done
With a face that m ay ust not see the sun?
Mother, let it wait for the night,—
Be sure its shame shall be out of sight
10Ere the moon pale or the east grow light.

Lost Rose Mary, what shall be done
With a heart that is but a broken one?
Mother, let it fall/die lie where it must;
The drained blood has left but the hollow crust was drained by with the bitter thrust ,
And dust is all that sinks in the dust

Poor Rose Mary, what shall I do,
I, your mother, who that lovèd you?
O, my mother, & is love gone?
Then seek you another love anon:
20My shame has a mate death to lean upon.

Low drooped trembling Rose Mary,
But tall again to her feet rose Then up as though in a dream stood she.
If love be hence & scorn be here/come
Added TextCome, my heart, it [?]is time to go,
Poor heart, the journey is burdensome
Added TextThis is the hour that was stricken slow
With thy blood's pulse in the night we know/ Yet there's one heart shall yield thee a home When thy pulse throbbed quailed in the nights we know.

page: [4]

Manuscript Addition: (Rose Mary)

Editorial Description: Pencil notation in another hand along the right margin

O my shame, it is known, known, known shown, shown, shown!
Come back, dear love, or I die alone!
O Lord God, one are we, and thine!
As for one soul, be it his and mine,
30The shrift he bears from the holy shrine!

Ah me! as yet but a day apart!—
Three days more!—she said to her heart.
Yet God be thanked that I still could see!
His death by heaven's help shall not be;
Nor your scorn, mother, yield bring death to me
Added TextBut shall I live till he come to me?

Tell me, mother O my heart, & where shall I hide
The bridegroom's choice/mate choice till she be a bride?
Through what thorn-brake, in what dusky gloam,
To what wind's wail shall my footsteps roam,
40Till my wedding-music fetch me home?

Lost perchance but not sad & pale
Added TextTall she stood, with a flame in her eye
She stood a minute & did not quail
Added TextAnd a cheek to burn her heart-strings by.
'Twas the lightning-flash o'er sky & plain
Ere labouring thunders heave the chain
From the floodgates of the drowning rain.

The lady watched her, pallid & still chill,
As a hurt thing that she yet must kill;
Then rose the tears that she might which no will not stem;
The mother clung to the daughter's hem
50And all the stormtide burst on them.

Heart to heart & face against face
They shook therelocked in a lone embrace
As the sky's moon & the water's moon
Neath cloud & wave to the wind's one tune
Shake in wild hours while of the night's at mid-noon.

page: [5]

Manuscript Addition: x 2 lines

Editorial Description: Pencil notation next to lines 20-21, which are here transcribed as a single line.

Beryl-Song.

We, cast forth from the Beryl,
Gyre-circling spirits of fire,
Whose pangs begin
With God's grace to Sin,
For whose spent powers the immortal hours [?] are sterile,—
Woe! must We behold this mother
Find grace in her dead child's face, & doubt of none other
But that perfect pardon, alas! hath assured God's her guerdon?
Woe! must We behold this daughter,
10Made clean/free clean from the sorrow of sin/ God's own decree the soil of sin wherewith We had fraught her,
Shake off a man's blood like water?
Write up her story
On the Gate of Heaven's glory,
As Whom there We behold her so fair in shining apparel,
And beneath us her the ruin
Of our own undoing!
Alas, the Beryl!
We had for a foeman
But one weak woman;
20In one day's strife, We made her to loathe Her all hope fell dead from her life;
And yet no iron,
Her soul to environ,
Could this manslayer, this false soothsayer imperil
Lo, where she bows
In the Holy House!
Who now shall dissever a the/ her soul from her bliss/its joy its joy for ever,
While every ditty
Of love and plentiful pity
30Fills the bright White City,
And the floor of Heaven to her feet for ever is given?
Added TextHark, a voice cries “Flee!”
Woe! woe! what shelter have We,
Whose pangs begin
With God's grace to sin,
For whose spent powers the immortal hours are sterile,
Gyre-circling spirits of fire,
We, cast forth from the Beryl?

Electronic Archive Edition: 1

Source File: 29-1871.delms.rad.xml