Sonnet ("O thou whose name being alone aloud") (corrected draft manuscript) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 Digital images courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Collection. [Untitled] Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1848 holograph corrected draft copy DGR DGR Delaware Art Museum, Bancroft Collection Box 22 no. 59 writing paper, measurements: 18 x 22.7 cm watermarked Commentary
Introduction

This is the only known complete manuscript of the sonnet, which is unpublished. The Delaware Art Museum also has a partial draft of the text. The two texts are quite different in content.

Textual History: Composition

The text of this manuscript is written on the same paper as the text of the pair of early sonnets titled “Filii Filia”; the first of these two comes down to us as “For an Annunciation. Early German” . The sonnet is therefore very early and probably was written in 1848, perhaps as early as 1847.

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Three lines were published as a fragment by WMR in 1911.

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

O thou whose name, being alone, aloud I utter oft, and though thou art not there, Perceive thy pictured presence fill the air,— O art thou from thy Heaven-home towards me bow'd? What [???] would not accept Why vainly now poor wretch desire the shroud And gladly yearn to yield thy whole of life's most bitter wane Only to listen to thy voice again? So Love should unto Death sink plumed & proud. Afar from With many thoughts of many hours removed Stand here alone, as in this chamber one that where erst were two: The glass stands empty of all things it knew Yet Memory hath sweet Memory here her hath not Memory here a power approved As balmy as the breath of her you loved When deep between her breasts it came to you.