The extreme artifice of the poem throws a decorative and
pictorial veil over the underlying romantic—indeed, Wordsworthian—
thematic structure. The work pivots around lines 13-14, which locate the
devotion of reciprocal blessings that are represented in the verse. As so
often in DGR's work, the implied temporality figured as the
poles of a then-now sequence is arrested and immobilized, as in a picture.
The signal opening word (“Peace”
) transforms into the word
“still”
(line 13), a conceptual rhyme that realizes the poem's
condition of stillness that is at once moral, psychic, and (ultimately)
textual. The poem is (literally) a prayer for peace that evolves into
an image of that prayer, or perhaps an icon of it.
According to WMR the poem was composed in
1869 (
First printed as part of the pre-publication process for the 1870
The title is a recollection of Shakespeare, “Sonnet 29” line 13.
“Boy's Love”, but cancelled this initial change in the
“a good example of Rossetti's occasionally(see Baum,‘pointed’style”
“still”is carefully worked for its multiple meanings, and the verbal forms echo across to each other (There/there/air; unheard/unconscious/ inviolate), arresting the whole unit. Realizing
“thanks”as the subject of the verb
“await”further immobilizes the figuration, as it also doubles the possible references of
“thanks”and
“gift”(for either could be the speaker's or the maid's).