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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Michael Scott's Wooing (For a Picture)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1876 January 4
Type of Manuscript: manuscript letter with poetry

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

Note: DGR includes in a postscript to his letter some experiments with the metrical form for his project ballad on Michael Scott. The full text of the letter may be found in Fredeman, Correspondence, 76.6.
Transcription Gap: body of letter (printed elesewhere)
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more about Michael Scott's Wooing (For a Drawing)
PS What do you think of such a

metre as this for The Michael

Scott ballad?—

  • And as each gulf-scooped wave rang home
  • With hoary crest upraised,
  • Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed
  • Amid the champing foam.
The stanza, as wording, is only a first

notion from a moonlight sea-walk

last night. The metre is my own devising,

& I used it once before in a small

piece in my vol: called First Love.

I'm not sure about its fitness.

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PPS

Or what do you say to running it into

a three six-lined stanza?—
  • Down on his silence or “on him silent.” Which is best? the moon gazed
  • Dumb from the unmeasured dome:
  • And as each gulf-scooped wave rang home
  • With hoary crest upraised,
  • Like fire in snow in the moonlight blazed
  • 10Amid the champing foam.
I fancy that is better for the purpose.

What do you think? It w d refer to the

moment when M.S. is left alone while his

friends knock up the father.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: ashley1411.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of The British Library