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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Autumn Song (WMR's fair copy, five stanza version)
Author: DGR
Date of Composition: 1848
Type of Manuscript: fair copy
Scribe: WMR

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

Image of page [1] page: [1]
Manuscript Addition: Sent to his mother by Gabriel in a letter sum- / mer/48—“written yesterday”
Editorial Description: WMR's note added at the top of the page
more about Autumn Song
The Fall of the Leaf
  • Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
  • How the heart feels a languid grief
  • Laid on it for a covering,
  • And how sleep seems a goodly thing
  • In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
  • And how the spirit gripes misfortune
  • At the fall of the leaf in Autumn,
  • As one that makes the ? end more brief,
  • And how the mind with the falling leaf
  • 10Falls, till its births are mere abortion?
  • Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
  • How the clogged sense, coiled up & stiff
  • At feel of summer's vanishing perishing,
  • Dares not pass winter to reach Spring
  • In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
  • And how the swift heat of the brain
  • Hateth because it is in vain
  • In Autumn at the fall of the leaf,
  • Knowest thou not? & how the chief
  • 20Of joys seems not to have much pain.
    • Image of page [1v] page: [1v]
  • Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
  • How the soul feels as a dried sheaf
  • Bound up at length for harvesting,
  • And how death seems a comely thing
  • In autumn at the fall of the leaf?
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 7-1848.sangms.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the South African National Gallery