<title level="doc">The Cloud Confines Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 © Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library The Cloud Confines DGR 1880 1 leaf folded to four pages DGR Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Tinker 1802 white 17.5 x 22 cm Commentary
Introduction

This fair copy manuscript varies substantively from the received text only in the final refrain.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

The Cloud Confines. --------- The day is dark and the night To him that would 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: Still we say as we go,— “Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.” The Past is over and fled; Named new, we name it the old; Thereof some tale hath been told, But no word comes from the dead. Whether at all they be, Or whether as bond or free, Or whether they too were we, Or by what spill they have sped. Still we say as we go,— “Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.” What of the heart of hate That beats in thy breast, O Time?— Red strife from the furthest prime, And anguish of fierce debate; War that shatters her slain, And p Peace that grinds them as grain, And eyes fixed ever in vain On the pitiless eyes of Fate. Still we say as we go,— “Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.” What of the heart of love That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?— Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban Of fangs that mock them above; Thy bells prolonged unto knells, Thy hope that a breath dispels, Thy bitter forlorn farewells And the empty echoes thereof? Still we say as we go,— “Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day.” The sky leans dumb on the sea, Aweary with all its wings; And oh! the song the sea sings Is dark everlastingly. Our past is clean forgot, Our present is and is not, Our future's a sealed seedplot, And what betwixt them are we? What words to say as we go? “I What thoughts to think by the way, What truth may there be to know, And shall we know it one day? -------------- blank page