23rd December 1880
Dear Wm.,
I wish you'd write me anything of your doings abroad or other news. I am likely
to be back in about a fortnight more I suppose but I shouldn't wonder if it
stretched to three weeks. The changes in my studio at Chelsea under Webb's
directions, giving me a good light at last, will be completed next week. You
might go and take a look at them if you liked. I have been doing a replica here (of that Beatrice)—a beastly job,
but lucre was the lure—also a little picture of
Janey with background of this place and river, made to fit a lovely old
Italian frame I have. I have written a few things—notably Part I (51 five-line
stanzas) of a poem called “Rose Mary” (you may remember my using the name long
ago for some rubbish destroyed) and which is about a magic crystal or Beryl as
it was called—a story of my own, good, I think, turning of course on the
innocence required in the seer. Part 2 will be much longer I think, and should
hope to get on with it now, were it not that Top comes here tonight from
Iceland, and will bring a storm of talk with him.
On one short thing I have done, not meant to be a trifle, I want your advice
about the close. I copy it herewith, and the form of the four last lines there
given is the one I incline to adopt—thus you see leaving the whole question
open. But at first I had meant to answer the question in a way, on the theory
hardly of annihilation but of absorption. As thus (last five lines)—
“And what must our birthright be?
O never from thee to sever
Thou Will that shalt be and art,—
To throb at thy heart for ever
Yet never to know thy heart.”
As I say, I incline to the lines given in the copy as the safest course. Those
above seem too to have a possible suggestion of a personal Deity, though of
course this is not meant. Does the parrot brought me by Stillman talk?
Ever yours,
D. G. R.
P.S. I'm Dark-Blued at last, owing to Brown who was asked to illustrate something
of mine for them if I would contribute. It's a little sort of ballad I wrote
here—to appear in October.
The Cloud Confines
The day is dark and the night
To him that would search their heart;
No lips of cloud that will part
Nor morning song in the light:
Only, gazing alone,
To him wild shadows are shown,
Deep under deep unknown
And height above unknown height.
Still we say as we go,—
“Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day.”
The Past is over and fled;
Named new, we name it the old;
Thereof some tale hath been told,
But no word comes from the dead.
Whether at all they be,
Or whether as bond or free,
Or whether they too were we,
Or by what spell they have sped.
Still we say as we go,—
“Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day.”
What of the heart of hate
That beats in thy breast*, O Time?—
*or “to thy steps”?
Red strife from the furthest prime,
And anguish of fierce debate;
War that shatters her slain,
And peace that grinds them* as grain,
*or “men”?
With eyes fixed ever in vain
On the pitiless eyes of Fate.
Still we say as we go,—
“Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day.”
What of the heart of love
That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?—
Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban
Of fangs that mock them above;
Thy bells prolonged unto knells,
Thy hope that a breath dispels,
Thy bitter forlorn farewells
And the empty echoes thereof.
Still we say as we go,—
“Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day.”
The sky leans dumb on the sea,
Aweary with all its wings;
And oh! the song the sea sings
Is dark everlastingly.
Our past is clean forgot,
Our present is and is not,
Our future's a sealed seedplot,
And what betwixt them are we?—
What word's to say as we go?
What thought's to think by the way?
What truth may there be to know,
And shall we know it one day?