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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: William Blake (to Frederick Shields, on his sketch of Blake's work-room and death-room, 3, Fountain Court, Strand.)
Author: DGR
Date of Composition: 1880 July 13
Type of Manuscript: fair copy
Scribe: DGR

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more about William Blake (to Frederick Shields, on his sketch of Blake's work-room and death-room, 3, Fountain Court, Strand.)
William Blake

(To Frederick Shields, on his sketch of Blake's unaltered work-room

and death-room, 3 Fountain Court, Strand.)
  • This is the place. Even here the dauntless soul,
  • The unflinching hand, wrought on; till in that nook,
  • As on that very bed, his life partook
  • New birth, and passed. Yon river's distant shoal,
  • Whereto the close-built coiling lanes unroll,
  • Faced his work-window, whence his eyes would stare,
  • Thought-wandering, to no sight that met them there,
  • But to the unfettered irreversible goal.
  • This cupboard, Holy of Holies, held the cloud
  • 10 Of his soul writ and limned. This other one,
  • His true wife's charge, full oft to their abode
  • Yielded for daily bread the martyr's stone,
  • Ere yet their food might be that Bread alone,
  • The words now home-speech of the mouth of God.
DGR 1880
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 6-1880.ubcms.rad.xml