Commentary
Introduction
Though placed under a heading that calls this poem a
<xref doc="a.44b-1869.raw">“Song”</xref>
, its form owes
much to DGR's study of Browning and the tradition of the dramatic
monologue. Despite its oblique and imploding metrics, which work
against the essentially realistic inertia of the dramatic monologue, the poem
has the same kind of objectivity as
<xref doc="a.3-1847.raw">“My
Sister's Sleep”</xref>
and
<xref doc="a.1-1856.raw">“The Woodspurge”</xref>
.
Aptly titled, the poem represents a critical self-assessment
by a lover who in “one hour”
, now regretted, failed in his
love devotions. The failure occurs because the objective circumstances of
“that day
” did not appear to require such devotions. To the
speaker, the failure is all the more disastrous for that reason. In the 1870
<xref doc="a.1-1870.raw">
<hi rend="i">Poems</hi>
</xref>
,
the sonnets
<xref doc="a.17-1869.raw">“Vain Virtues”</xref>
and
<xref doc="a.1-1862.raw">“Lost Days”</xref>
explore similar psychic perceptions and conditions.
Textual History: Composition
According to WMR the poem was composed in 1853
(1911). There is no hard
evidence that confirms or disconfirms that dating. The only manuscript
is a corrected fair copy of
the first three stanzas (located in the Fitzwilliam Museum); it seems to be
complete in that form, and the manuscript is on paper that we know DGR
was using in the summer of 1869.
Textual History: Revision
In its first printing in the Penkill Proofs the poem's last two stanzas were quite different. DGR
began a process of revision in those proofs that continued through the next
proof stage (see
Doughty and Wahl,
<hi rend="i">Letters</hi> vol. 2
, 740
; and
Peattie,
<hi rend="i">Letters of William Michael Rossetti</hi>
, 230
).
The poem then remained stable until the latest of DGR's proofs, when he
radically altered the final two stanzas “now continuing the
parenthesis throughout, as the omission of this was slovenly
”
(
<hi rend="i">Letters</hi> vol. 2
, 812
: to Swinburne, 9 March 1870).
Printing History
First printed as part of the pre-publication process
for the 1870
<xref doc="a.1-1870.raw">
<hi rend="i">Poems</hi>
</xref>
, in the Penkill
Proofs, August 1869. Those proofs have no special organization of the
poetic units. At the next proof stage, the so-called A Proofs (Sept. 1869), this poem is placed in a
loosely organized section under the heading
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">
<hi rend="i">Sonnets and Songs, Towards a Work to
be Called</hi>
<title level="wrk">The House of Life
.
DGR experimented with the order of this section until, in the final proof
stage (realized at the beginning of March, 1870) this poem and ten others were
grouped as
<xref doc="a.44-1869.raw">
<hi rend="i">The
House of Life</hi>
</xref>
's integral section
of
<xref doc="a.44b-1869.raw">
<hi rend="i">Songs</hi>
</xref>
. In the 1881
<xref doc="a.1-1881.raw">
<hi rend="i">Poems. A New Edition</hi>
</xref>
, this section is detached from
<xref doc="a.22-1881.raw">
<hi rend="i">The House of Life</hi>
</xref>
and
placed under the heading
<xref doc="a.20-1881.raw">
<hi rend="i">Lyrics</hi>
</xref>
, and two other poems are added to the
group.