John Keats (British Library fair copy) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 By permission of the British Library SONNET ON JOHN KEATS - D.G. ROSSETTI - 1881 Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1880 fair copy [i-iii], [1-2] This bound volume was put together by T. J. Wise to house DGR's fair copy manuscript. Wise added the book's elaborate title-page. British Museum Library, Ashley Collection Ashley 3477 ruled white laid paper 22.3 x 17.6 cm leaf torn from one of DGR's typical notebooks Commentary
Introduction

T. J. Wise bound this booklet for DGR's fair copy of his Keats sonnet, followed by a printed copy and artistic title page with a portrait of Keats as a frontispiece. The booklet cover is red levant morrocco bound by Riviere with an embossed or stamped title. Paper is Whatman's hand-made, uncut in the original blue-grey paper boards, backed with white, with white paper back-label.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

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Bibliographic

Bookplate with standing female angel blowing trumpet and seated female angel. Between the two figures is a flowing banner on which is inscribed the owner's name. Below the figures and the ower's name is an inscribed poem.

THOMAS JAMES WISE HIS BOOK

BOOKS BRING ME FRIENDS WHERE'ER ON EARTH I BE. SOLACE OF SOLITUDE& BONDS OF SOCIETY! blank page ASHLEY MS. 3477. British Library catalog number. Pages i verso to ii are blank. Engraving of John Keats Sonnet on John Keats by Dante Gabriel Rossetti --- First published in ”Ballads and Sonnets“ 1881 The printed copy of the poem taken from the <hi rend="i">Ballads and Sonnets</hi> text (page 316) has been omitted from this transcription. <hi rend="sc">IV. JOHN KEATS</hi> The weltering London ways where children weep And girls whom none call maidens laugh,— strange road Miring his outward steps, who inly trode The bright Castalian brink and Latmos' steep:— Even such his life's cross-paths; till deathly deep He toiled through sands of Lethe; and long pain, Weary with labour spurned and love found vain, In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his sleep. O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips And heart-strung lyre awoke the Moon's eclipse,— Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er,— Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ But rumour'd in water, while the fame of it Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore.