The Fortnightly Review, Volume 5 Chapman and Hall (publisher) 1 The Fortnightly Review Chapman and Hall Virtue and Co. London 1869 January - 1869 June 5 (new series) ap4.f7 Commentary
Introduction

The text initially gathered from this volume is DGR's initial effort towards the sequence of sonnets that would culminate in the 1881 <hi rend="i">House of Life</hi> . Here it is the sequence “Of Life, Love, and Death: Sixteen Sonnets” , which was printed in the March issue.

Textual History: Composition

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<hi rend="c">OF LIFE, LOVE, AND DEATH: SIXTEEN SONNETS.</hi> <hi rend="c"> <hi rend="i">SONNETS I., II., III., IV.</hi> </hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">WILLOWWOOD.</hi> I. I sat with Love upon a woodside well, Leaning across the water, I and he; Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me, But touched his lute wherein was audible The certain secret thing he had to tell: Only our mirrored eyes met silently In the low wave; and that sound came to be The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell. And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers; And with his foot and with his wing-feathers He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth; Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair, And as I stooped, her own lips rising there Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth. II. And now Love sang: but his was such a song, So meshed with half-remembrance hard to free, As souls disused in death's sterility May sing when the new birthday tarries long: And I was made aware of a dumb throng That stood aloof, one form by every tree, All mournful forms, for each was I or she, The shades of those our days that had no tongue. They looked on us, and knew us and were known; While fast together, alive from the abyss, Clung the soul-wrung implacable close kiss; And pity of self through all made broken moan Which said, “For once, for once, for once alone!” And still Love sang, and what he sang was this:— III. “O ye, all ye that walk in Willowwood, That walk with hollow faces burning white; What fathom-depth of soul-struck widowhood, What long, what longer hours, one lifelong night, Ere ye again, who so in vain have wooed Your last hope lost, who so in vain invite Your lips to that their unforgotten food, Ere ye, ere ye again shall see the light! Alas! the bitter banks in Willowwood, With tear-spurge wan, with blood-wort burning red: Alas! if ever such a pillow could Steep deep the soul in sleep till she were dead,— Better all life forget her than this thing, That Willowwood should hold her wandering!” IV. So sang he: and as meeting rose and rose Together cling through the wind's wellaway Nor change at once, yet near the end of day The leaves drop loosened where the heart-stain glows,— So when the song died did the kiss unclose; And her face fell back drowned, and was as grey As its grey eyes; and if it ever may Meet mine again I know not if Love knows. Only I know that I leaned low and drank A long draught from the water where she sank, Her breath and all her tears and all her soul: And as I drank I know I felt Love's face Pressed on my neck with moan of pity and grace, Till both our heads were in his aureole. ------------ <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET V</hi>.<lb/> </hi> <hi rend="c">SLEEPLESS DREAMS.</hi> Girt in dark growths, yet glimmering with one star, O vain night sweeter than the nights of youth! Why should my heart within thy spell, forsooth, Now beat, as the bride's finger-pulses are Quickened within the girdling golden bar? What wings are these that fan my pillow smooth? And why does Sleep, waved back by Joy and Ruth, Tread softly round and gaze at me from far? Nay, night! Would false Love counterfeit in thee The shadowy palpitating grove that bears Rest for man's eyes and music for his ears? O lonely night! art thou not known to me, A thicket hung with masks of mockery And watered with the wasteful warmth of tears? ------------ <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET VI</hi>.</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">LOST ON BOTH SIDES.</hi> As when two men have loved a woman well, Each hating each, through Love's and Death's deceit; Since not for either this strait marriage-sheet And the long pauses of this wedding-bell; Yet o'er her grave the night and day dispel At last their feud forlorn, with cold and heat; Nor other than dear friends to death may fleet The two lives left that most of her can tell:— So separate hopes, which in a soul had wooed The one same Peace, strove with each other long, And Peace before their faces perished since: So through that soul, in restless brotherhood, They roam together now, and wind among Its bye-streets, knocking at the dusty inns. VOL. V. N.S. U <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET VII</hi>.</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">RUN AND WON.</hi> Around the vase of Life at your slow pace He has not crept, but turned it with his hands, And all its sides already understands. There, girt, one breathes alert for some great race; Whose road runs far by sands and fruitful space; Who laughs, yet through the jolly throng has pass'd; Who weeps, nor stays for weeping; who at last, A youth, stands somewhere still, with silent face. And he has filled this vase with wine for blood, With blood for tears, with spice for burning vow, With watered flowers for buried love most fit; And would have cast it shattered to the flood, Yet in Fate's name has kept it whole; which now Stands empty till his ashes fall in it. ------------ <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET VIII</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c">A SUPERSCRIPTION.</hi> Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell: Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between; Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen Which had Life's form and Love's, but by my spell Is now a shaken shadow intolerable, Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen. Mark me, how still I am: but should there dart One moment through thy soul the swift surprise Of that soft wing which lulls the breath of sighs,— Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart Sleepless with cold commemorative eyes. Typo: on page 270, in line 2 of The Landmark (Whose wave, low down, I did not not stoop to drink,) the word not is unnecessarily repeated. <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET IX</hi>.</hi> <lb/> <hi rend="c">WINGED HOURS.</hi> Each hour until we meet is as a bird That wings from far his gradual way along The rustling covert of my soul,—his song Still loudlier trilled through leaves more deeply stirr'd; But at the hour of meeting, a clear word Is every note he sings, in Love's own tongue; Yet, Love, thou know'st the sweet strain suffers wrong,— Through our contending kisses oft unheard. What of that hour at last, when for her sake No wing may fly to me nor song may flow; When, wandering round my life unleaved, I know The bloodied feathers scattered in the brake, And think how she, far from me, with like eyes Sees through the untuneful bough the wingless skies? ------------ <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET X</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c">THE LANDMARK.</hi> Was that the landmark? What,—the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!)— Was that my point of turning?—I had thought The stations of my course should loom unsought, As altar-stone or ensigned citadel. But lo! the path is missed, I must go back, And thirst to drink when next I reach the spring Which once I stained, which since may have grown black. Yet though no light be left nor bird now sing As here I turn, I'll thank God, hastening, That the same goal is still on the same track. U2 <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET XI</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c">BROKEN MUSIC.</hi> The mother will not turn, who thinks she hears Her nursling's speech first grow articulate; But breathless with averted eyes elate She sits, with open lips and open ears, That it may call her twice. 'Mid doubts and fears Thus oft my soul has hearkened; till her song, A central moan for days, at length found tongue, And the sweet music welled and the sweet tears. But now, whatever while the soul is fain To list that wonted murmur, as it were The speech-bound sea-shell's low importunate strain; No breath of song,—thy voice alone is there, O bitterly beloved! And all her gain Is but the pang of unpermitted prayer. ------------ <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET XII</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c">LOST DAYS.</hi> The lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway? I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. “I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?” “And I—and I—thyself,” (lo! each one saith,) “And thou thyself to all eternity!” <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET XIII</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c">KNOWN IN VAIN.</hi> As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope, Knows suddenly, with music high and soft, The Holy of holies; who because they scoff'd Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope With the whole truth in words, lest heaven should ope; Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd In speech; nor speak, at length; but sitting oft Together, within hopeless sight of hope For hours are silent:—So it happeneth When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze After their life sailed by, and hold their breath. Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze Thenceforth their incommunicable ways Follow the desultory feet of Death? ------------ <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNET XIV</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c">INCLUSIVENESS.</hi> The changing guests, each in a different mood, Sit at the roadside table and arise: And every life among them in likewise Is a soul's board set daily with new food. What man has bent o'er his son's sleep, to brood How that face shall watch his when cold it lies?— Or thought, as his own mother kissed his eyes, Of what her kiss was when his father wooed? May not this ancient room thou sit'st in dwell In separate living souls for joy or pain? Nay, all its corners may be painted plain Where Heaven shows pictures of some life spent well: And may be stamped, a memory all in vain, Upon the sight of lidless eyes in Hell. <hi rend="i"> <hi rend="c">SONNETS XV., XVI.</hi> </hi>.<lb/> <hi rend="c">NEWBORN DEATH.</hi> I. To-day Death seems to me an infant child Which her worn mother Life upon my knee Has set to grow my friend and play with me; If haply so my heart might be beguil'd To find no terrors in a face so mild,— If haply so my weary heart might be Unto the newborn milky eyes of thee, O Death, before resentment reconcil'd. How long, O Death? And shall thy feet depart Still a young child's with mine, or wilt thou stand Fullgrown the helpful daughter of my heart, What time with thee indeed I reach the strand Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art, And drink it in the hollow of thy hand? II. And thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss, With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast, I wandered till the haunts of men were pass'd, And in fair places found all bowers amiss Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss, While to the winds all thought of Death we cast:— Ah! Life, and must I have from thee at last No smile to greet me and no babe but this? Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hair Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath; And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair; These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breath With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there:— And did these die that thou might'st bear me Death? Dante Gabriel Rossetti.