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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: On the Site of a Mulberry-Tree, planted by William Shakespeare, felled by Rev. F. Gastrell (Delaware fair copy)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1853
Type of Manuscript: draft manuscript
Scribe: DGR

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

Image of page [1] page: [1]
Manuscript Addition: 9 / 31 / 37
Editorial Note: Numbers written in upper left corner.
Manuscript Addition: (15)
Editorial Note: Notation by unknown hand identifying the sonnet in upper right corner.
more about On the Site of a Mulberry-Tree, planted by William Shakespeare, felled by Rev. F. Gastrell
On the Site of a Mulberry-Tree;

Planted by W m Shakespeare;

felled by Rev.:XXX
  • This tree, here fall'n, no common birth or death
  • Shared with its kind. The world's enfranchised son,
  • Who found the trees of Life and Knowledge one,
  • Here set it, frailer than his laurel-wreath.
  • Shall not the wretch whose hand it fell beneath
  • Rank also singly—the supreme unhung?
  • Lo! Sheppard, Turpin, pleading with black tongue
  • This viler thief's unsuffocated breath!
  • We'll search thy glossary, Shakespeare! whence almost,
  • 10And whence alone, some name shall be reveal'd
  • For this deaf drudge, to whom no length of ears
  • Sufficed to catch the music of the spheres;
  • Whose soul is carrion now,—too mean to yield
  • Some Starveling's ninth allotment of a ghost.
Stratford-on-Avon.
Electronic Archive Edition:
Source File: 9-1853.delms.rad.xml