Bodleian Notebook II DGR 1 The Bodleian Library, Oxford <author>DGR</author> <msprod> <date compdate="1870,1880">1870-1880 ?</date> <type>miscellaneous collection</type> <assign/> <collation>1-18</collation> <note/> </msprod> <scribe>DGR</scribe> <corrector>DGR</corrector> <provenance> <location>The Bodleian Library</location> <recnum>Ms Eng. poet.d.44</recnum> <note/> </provenance> <physicaldesc> <binding> <cover/> <endpapers/> </binding> <typography> <typeface> <point/> <font/> </typeface> <pagelines> <number/> <length/> </pagelines> <columns/> <margin type="top"/> <margin type="bottom"/> <margin type="right"/> <margin type="left"/> <note/> </typography> <paper> <stock>unruled laid white</stock> </paper> <watermark/> <size>11.4 x 18 cm</size> <note/> </physicaldesc> </citnstruct> </sourcedesc> </filedesc> <encodingdesc/> <profiledesc> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>The collection of manuscripts was put together by the Bodleian Library to hold a miscellaneous collection of loose DGR manuscripts that came to the library as part of the May Morris bequest (see Robert Steele's note in the bound volume of so-called <xref doc="a.9-1874.bodleianms.rad" from="1">Kelmscott Love Sonnets</xref>). The volume itself measures 23.5 x 19cm.</p> <p>The texts of the poems often differ markedly from the received texts, altering our sense of the intricate personal meanings of the poems. What bears most pertinently on the issue of meaning is the fact that all of these texts were sent by DGR to Jane Morris. That connection inevitably highlights certain personal features of the poems that might have otherwise passed notice.</p> <p>In addition, the poems seem to be carefully arranged as a sequence. The order almost certainly is not DGR's but it is a deliberately interpretive one, and probably represents Mrs. Morris's sense of an apt arrangement. What she may have thought can be glimpsed in a passage from <xref doc="a.pr5246.a45.rad" from="165" to="166">DGR's letter</xref> to her of 26 November 1880—a response to a letter (not extant) that she wrote to him: “I felt deeply the regard so deeply expressed in your last letter. I may claim to deserve it on the ground only of an equal regard—would I could say of any worthy result! The deep-seated basis of feeling, as expressed in that sonnet [i.e., <xref doc="a.3-1881.raw"> <title level="wrk">“True Woman. I” , is as fresh and unchanged in me towards you as ever. though all else is withered and gone.”

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

D.29.3.39 R Steele Robert Steele's identification note 1 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand The Sonnet A Sonnet is a moment's monument,— Memorial from the soul's eternity To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be, Whether for lustral rite or dire portent, Of its own intricate fulness reverent: Carve it in ivory or in ebony, As Day or Night prevail; and let Time see Its flowering crest impearled and orient. A Sonnet is a coin, whose face reveals Thy soul; and its reverse to whom 'tis due:— Whether for tribute to the august appeals Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death. 2 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand May 1869 Would God your health were as this month of May Should be, were this not England,—and your face Abroad, to give the gracious sunshine grace And smi laugh beneath the budding hawthorn-spray. But here the hedgerows pine from green to grey While yet May's lyre is tuning, and her song Is weak in shade that should in sun be strong; And your pulse springs not to so faint a lay. If in my life be breath of Italy, Would God that I might yield it all to you! So, when such grafted warmth had burgeoned through The languor of your Maytime's hawthorn-tree, My spirit at rest should walk unseen & see The garland of your beauty bloom anew. 3 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand Winter How large that thrush looks on the bare thorn-tree! A swarm of such, three little months ago, Had hidden in the leaves and let none know Save by the outburst of their minstrelsy. A white flake here and there—a snow-lily Of last night's frost—our naked flower-beds hold; And for a rose-flower on the darkling mould The redbreast gleams,— poor hungry wanderer he! The current shudders to its icebound sedge: Nipped in their bath, the stark reeds one by one Flash each its clinging diamond in the sun: While swells the gale which for a winter pledge Shall curb great king-masts to the ocean's edge And leave memorial forest-kings o'erthrown. 4 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand Hero's Lamp That lamp thou fill'st in Eros' name to-night, O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs take Tomorrow, and for drowned Leander's sake To Anteros its fireless lip shall plight. Aye, waft the unspoken vow. The dawn's first light On ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break; While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake, Lo! where Love walks, Death's pallid neophyte. That lamp within Anteros' shadowy shrine Shall stand unlit (for so the gods decree) Till some one man the happy issue see Of a life's love, and bid its flame to shine: Which still may rest unfir'd; for mine or thine, O brother, what brought Love to thee or me? 5 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand John Keats,<lb/>Sixty Years Dead. The weltering London ways where children weep,— Where girls whom none call maidens laugh,—whose gain Hurrying men's steps, is still by loss o'erta'en:— The bright Castalian brink and Latmos' steep:— Such were his paths, till deeper & more deep He trod the sands of Lethe; and long pain, Weary with labour spurned and love found vain, In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his sleep. O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips And heart-strung lyre awoke the Moon's eclipse,— Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er,— Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ But rumour'd in water, while the fame of it Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore. 6 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand Gracious Moonlight Even as the moon grows queenlier in mid-space When the sky darkens, and her cloud-rapt car Thrills with intenser radiance from afar,— So lambent, lady, beams thy sovereign grace When the drear soul desires thee. Of that face What shall be said,—which, like a governing star, Gathers and garners from all things that are Their silent penetrative loveliness? O'er water-daisies and wild waifs of Spring, There where the iris rears its gold-crowned sheaf With flowering rush and sceptred arrow-leaf, So have I marked Queen Dian, in bright ring Of cloud above and wave below, take wing And chase night's gloom, as thou the spirit's grief. 7 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand During Music Is it the moved air or the moving sound That is Life's self and draws my life from me, And by instinct ineffable decree Holds my breath quailing on the bitter bound? Surely an imminent visage, from some mound Watching the tide of all emergency, Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea Its difficult eddies labour underground. And what is this that knows the road I came, The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame, The lifted shifted steeps and all the way?— That enters with me now the wind-warm space, And in regenerate rapture turns my face Upon the devious coverts of dismay? 8 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand 29.12.79 This is Jane Morris's dating—indicating when she had the sonnet from DGR. Pleasure and Memory The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring; The rosebud's blush that leaves it as it grows Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose; The summer clouds that visit every wing With fires of sunrise and of sunsetting; The furtive flickering streams to light re-born 'Mid airs new-fledged & valorous lusts of morn, While all the daughters of the daybreak sing:— These pleasure loves, and memory: and when flown All joys, and through dark forest-boughs in flight The wind swoops onward brandishing the light, Even yet the rose-tree's verdure left alone Will flush all ruddy when the rose is gone; With ditties and with dirges infinite. 9 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand 16.11.80 This is Jane Morris's dating, indicating when she had the sonnet from DGR The prose note to the sonnet is addressed from DGR to Jane Morris. Transfigured Life As growth of form or momentary glance In a child's features will recall to mind The father's with the mother's face combin'd,— Sweet interchange that memories still enhance: And yet, as childhood's years & youth's advance, The gradual mouldings leave one stamp behind, Till in the blended likeness now we find A separate man's or woman's countenance:— So in the Song, the singer's Joy and Pain, Its very parents, evermore expand To bid the passion's full-grown birth remain, By Art's transfiguring essence subtly spann'd; And from that song-cloud shaped as a man's hand There comes the sound as of abundant rain. -----

x You know the allusion in the last two lines is to the story of Elijah.

 10 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand 16.11.80 This is Jane Morris's dating, indicating when she had the sonnet from DGR At the bottom of the page is a small drawing, evidently insrted to illustrate line 13 of the sonnet. <hi rend="c">True Woman</hi> To be a sweetness more desired than Spring; A bodily beauty more acceptable Than the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell; To be an essence more environing Than wine's drained juice; a music ravishing More than the passionate pulse of Philomel;— To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell That is the flower of life:—how strange a thing! How strange a thing to be what Man can know But as a sacred secret! Heaven's own screen Hides her soul's purest depth & loveliest glow; Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,— The wave-bowered pearl,—the heart-shaped seal of green That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow. 11 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand 14.12.80 This is Jane Morris's dating, indicating when she had the sonnet from DGR True Woman. II She loves him, for her infinite soul is Love, And he her lodestar. Passion in her is A glass facing his fire, where the bright bliss Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet move That glass, a stranger's amorous flame to prove, And it shall turn, by instant contraries, Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his For whom it burns, clings close i' the heart's alcove. Lo! they are one. Perchance in love's first day Her mind unto his mind faint response gave,— His heart to her rich heart. But as sea-spray Over itself aspires, till each curved cave Of shadow is lapped in light,—even so he gave And she, their dower. Shall this not last for aye? 12 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand 14.12.80 This is Jane Morris's dating, indicating when she had the sonnet from DGR True Woman III If to grow old in Heaven is to grow young, (As the Seer saw & said,) then blest were he With youth for evermore, whose heaven should be True Woman, she whom these weak notes have sung. Here and hereafter,—choir-strains of her tongue,— Sky-spaces of her eyes,—sweet signs that flee About her soul's immediate sanctuary,— Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among. The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill Like any hillflower; and the noblest troth Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise clothe Even yet those lovers who have cherished still This test for love:—in every kiss sealed fast To feel the first kiss & forebode the last. 13 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand (O.M.B.) This is Jane Morris's notation, indicating that the sonnet is an elegy for Oliver Madox Brown. [Untitled] Upon the landscape of his coming life A youth high-gifted gazed, and found it fair: The heights of work, the floods of praise were there. What friendships, what desires, what love, what wife?— All things to come. The fanned Springtime was rife With imminent solstice; and the ardent air Had Summer sweets and autumn fires to bear;— Heart's ease full-pulsed with perfect strength for strife. A mist has risen: we see the youth no more: Does he see on and strive on? And may we, Late-tottering worldworn hence, find his to be The young strong hand which helps us up that shore? Or, echoing the No More with Nevermore, Must Night be ours and his? We hope: and he? 14 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand The Water Willow Leaves and rain & the days of the year, (Water-willow & wellaway,) All these fall, and my soul gives ear, And she is hence who once was here. (With a wind blown night & day.) Ah! but now, for a secret sign, (The willow's wan and the water white,) In the held breath of the day's decline Her very lips seemed pressed to mine. (With a wind blown day & night.) O love, of my death my life is fain, (The willows wave on the waterway,) Your mouth & mine are cold in the rain, But warm they'll be when we meet again. (With a wind blown night & day.) Mists are heaved & cover the sky; (The willows wail in the waning light,) O part your lips, leave space for a sigh,— They seal my soul, I cannot die. (With a wind blown day & night.) Leaves & rain & the days of the year, (Water-willow & wellaway) All still fall, & I still give ear, And she is hence, & I am here. (With a wind blown night & day.) --------- 15 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand <hi rend="u">A Little While.</hi> A little while a little love The hour yet bears for thee & me Who have not drawn the veil to see If still our heaven be lit above. Thou merely, at the day's last sigh, Hast felt thy soul prolong the tone; And I have heard the night-wind cry And deemed its speech mine own. A little while a little love The scattering autumn hoards for us Whose bower is not yet ruinous Nor quite unleaved our songless grove. Only across the shaken boughs We hear the flood-tides seek the sea, And deep in both our hearts they rouse One wail for thee and me. A little while a little love May yet be ours who have not said The word it makes our eyes afraid To know that each is thinking of. Not yet the end: be our lips dumb In smiles a little season yet: I'll tell thee, when the end is come, How we may best forget. -------------- 16 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand La Feuille -------------- “De ta tige détachée, Pauvre feuille depéchée, Où va tu?” — “Je n' én sais rien L'orage a brisé le chêne Qui seul était mon soutien. De son inconstante haliene Le zéphyr ou l'aguilon Depuis ce jour me proméne De la forêt à la plaine, De la montagne au vallon. Je vais oú le vent me mène Sans me plaindre on m'effrayer; Je vais où va toute chose, Où va la feuille de rose Et la feuille de laurier.” ----------

Vincent-Antoine Arnault

 17 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand The Leaf. ----------- “Torn from your parent bough, Poor leaf all withered now, Where go you?” — “I cannot tell. Storm-stricken is the oak tree Where I grew, whence I fell. Changeful continually, The zephyr & hurricane Since that day bid me flee From the woods to the lea, From the hills to the plain. Where the wind carries me I go without fear or grief: I go whither each one goes,— Thither the leaf of the rose And thither the laurel-leaf.” ------------- DGR 19 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand 16.12.80 Jane Morris's dating of the letter The letter is printed in Doughty and Wahl, <hi rend="i">Letters</hi> , IV. 2362 .

My Dear Janey

I hope you are not over-working as to pre-paration. This might bring on a breakdown.

I am really going to get a new Vol out to be called, Poems Old & New, but do not talk about it in the least, or there will be gossip paragraphs prematurely. Only I must get

20 pagination in upper right corner, unknown hand

one long ballad done —that on the death of James I of Scotland. Perhaps I told you that the House of Life now numbers 100 Sonnets, & that I have 45 besides as an extra series.

I found to my bewil-derment that the 2nd half of NoII sonnet had a repeated rhyme—gave. This made me alter the 6 lines, and I like them better now in every way.

Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast And circling arms, she welcomes welcomes all command Of love,—her soul to answering ardours fann'd: Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest, Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand? ----------------

I haven't seen the poetictrash you speak of. I think you will do well not to look into such things at all.

Your affectionate Gabriel