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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Nuptial Sleep (corrected fair copy, British Library)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1869 (possibly summer)
Type of Manuscript: corrected fair copy
Scribe: DGR

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

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Note: 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!
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more about Nuptial Sleep
Placatâ Venere
  • So their mouths came asunder lips clove & sundered drew asunder with fierce smart—
  • And as like the last slow sudden drops are rain-drops shed
  • From sparkling eaves when all the short storm has fled,
  • So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.
  • Then their close bosoms sundered at one start
  • As when a flower bursts open on its bed
  • From the knit stem; yet still their mouths, burnt red,
  • Chirped at each other where they lay apart.
  • Sleep sank them lower than the tide of dreams,
  • 10 And their dreams watched them sink, & slid away.
  • Slowly their souls swam up again, through gleams
  • Of watered light, & dull drowned waifs of day;
  • Till from some wonder of new woods & streams
  • He woke, and wondered more: for there she lay.
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more about Study for Hector
 

Study for Hector

Figure: Pencil Sketch, 21.9 x 18 cm.



Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 5-1869.blms.rad.xml