Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription
Document Title: A Song and Music
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1849
Type of Manuscript: corrected fair copy
Scribe: DGR
The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
![Image of page [1r]](http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/44-1849.dukems.jpg)
Manuscript Addition: I
Editorial Description: Notation in the upper right corner
- O leave th y ine hand that lieth where it lies cool
- Upon the se eyes ; the whose lids are hot.
- Its rosy shade is bountiful
- Of silence, and assuages t thought.
- O set lay thy lips against th y ine hand
- And let me feel thy breath through it,
- While through the sense thy song notes shall fit
- The soul to understand.
- The music lives upon my brain
- 10 Between th y ine hands within mine eyes:
- It stirs thy lifted throat like pain,
- An aching pulse of melodies.
- Lean nearer: let the music pause:
- The soul may better understand
- Thy music, thus shadowed by in th y ine hand,
- When Now while the music's sound song withdraws.
![Image of page [1v]](http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/thumbs_small/8-1849.dukems.jpg)
Note: The prose text was clearly written by DGR as if for an imaginary monument to
be erected to Blake's memory.
Manuscript Addition: The Seed of David
Editorial Description: DGR's notation in the middle of the page
[Probably there is no character in which there
is so much of Shakespeare himself as in
Hamlet except in Falstaff.
is so much of Shakespeare himself as in
Hamlet except in Falstaff.
- Dear friend, if there be any bond
- Which friendship [?] wins not much beyond,
- —So old and fond, since thought began;—
- It may be that whose subtle span
- Binds Shakespeare to an English man.]
whose greatness may
be named even here
since it was only less than equalled by his goodness.
This tablet is now erected,
— years after his death
at the age of 68,
on the 12th of August, 1827;
in poverty & neglect;
by one who honours his life
and works.]
since it was only less than equalled by his goodness.
This tablet is now erected,
— years after his death
at the age of 68,
on the 12th of August, 1827;
in poverty & neglect;
by one who honours his life
and works.]
- All beauty to pourtray,
- Therein his duty lay,
- And still, through toilsome strife,
- Duty to him was life.
- O doubly blest, whose Most thankful still that duty
- Lay in the paths of beauty!
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File:
44-1849.dukems.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the Special Collections Library, Duke University