Ardour and Memory (holograph fair copy, Brotherton Collection, Leeds University) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 Digital images courtesy of Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. Ardour and Memory Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1873 holograph pen and ink fair copy DGR DGR Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Commentary
Introduction

This text of the sonnet is copied on the last page of a letter to William Davies, 31 December 1879 (see Fredeman, <hi rend="i">Correspondence</hi> , 79. 224 ).

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Pleasure & Memory The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring; The rosebud's blush that leaves it as it grows Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose; The summer clouds that visit every wing With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting; The furtive flickering streams to light re-born 'Mid airs new-fledged & valorous lusts of morn, While all the daughters of the daybreak sing:— These pleasure loves, and memory: and when flown All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight The wind swoops onward brandishing the light, Even yet the rose-tree's verdure left alone Will flush all ruddy when the rose be gone; With ditties and with dirges infinite. D.G.R. Xmas 1879