Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Lyrics, &c. (Princeton/Troxell bound manuscript volume)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1880-1881
Scribe: DGR

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

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Note: The bookplates of Charles Fairfax Murray and collector Janet C. Troxell are pasted on the inside front cover endpaper.
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Actual Size: 22 x 18 inches
Paper Lineation: unruled
Paper Stock: ivory
Actual Watermark: GURNEY / IVORY LAID
Manuscript Addition: The 1st section / of Chimes not / published
Editorial Description: WMR's note in upper left corner of the page.
Manuscript Addition: Original printer's copy / for Poems & Ballads / 1881
Editorial Description: WMR's note in lower left corner of the page.
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Printer's Direction: To come / before / the Sonnets / Sent now.
Editorial Description: Ink notation in upper right corner, set off with a bordering stroke.
Lyrics, &c.



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Soothsay
  • Let no man ask thee of anything
  • Not yearborn between Spring & Spring.
  • More of all worlds than he can know,
  • Each day the single sun doth show.
  • A trustier gloss than thou canst give
  • From all wise scrolls demonstrative,
  • The sea doth sigh and the wind sing.
  • Let no man awe thee on any height
  • Of earthly kingship's mouldering might.
  • 10The dust his heel holds meet for thy brow
  • Hath all of it been what both are now;
  • And thou and he may plague together
  • A beggar's eyes in some dusty weather
  • When none that is now knows sound or sight.
  • Crave thou no dower of earthly things
  • Unworthy Hope's imaginings.
  • To have brought true birth of Song to be
  • And to have won hearts to Poesy,
  • Or any where in the sun or rain
  • 20To have loved and been beloved again,
  • Is loftiest reach of Hope's bright wing.
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  • The wild waifs cast up by the sea
  • Are diverse ever seasonably.
  • Even so the soul-tides still may land
  • A separate different drift upon the sand.
  • But one the sea is evermore:
  • And one be still, 'twixt shore and shore,
  • As the sea's life, thy soul in thee.
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  • Let thy soul strive that still the same
  • Be early friendship's sacred flame.
  • The affinities have strongest part
  • In youth, and draw men heart to heart:
  • As life wears on and finds no rest,
  • The individual in each breast
  • Is tyrannous to sunder them.
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  • Dost vaunt the Poet? Musing on Muse upon
  • The work another's mind hath done;—
  • Its beauties first shall Do first its beauties touch thy thought?
  • And Then ponder ing what thyself hast wrought;—
  • Thou first shalt sigh Is first thy word, “Alas! how far
  • Behind conception's guiding star!”?
  • True Poet elsewise thou art none.
  • Say, hast thou pride? How then may fit
  • 30Thy mood with flatterers' silk-spun wit?
  • Haply the sweet voice lifts thy crest,
  • A breeze of fame made manifest.
  • Nay, but then chaf'st at flattery? Pause:
  • Be sure that it thy wrath is not because
  • It makes thee feel thou lovest it.
  • In the life-drama's stern cue-call,
  • A friend's a part well-prized by all:
  • And if thou meet an enemy,
  • What art thou that none such should be?
  • 40Even so: but if the two parts run
  • Into each other and grow one,
  • Then comes the curtain's cue to fall.
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  • Whate'er by other's need is claimed
  • More than by thine,—to him unblamed
  • Resign it: and if he should hold
  • What more than he thou lack'st, bread, gold,
  • Or any good whereby we live,—
  • To thee such substance let him give
  • Freely: nor he nor thou be shamed.
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Manuscript Addition: DG's passion
Editorial Description: Note, perhaps by Fairfax Murray, in left margin beside lines 74-75.
  • Strive that thy works prove equal: lest
  • That work which thou hast done the best
  • Should come to be to thee at length
  • (Even as to Envy seems the strength
  • Of others) hateful and abhorr'd,—
  • Thine own above thyself made lord,—
  • Of self-rebuke the bitterest.
  • 50Unto the man of yearning thought
  • And aspiration, to do nought
  • Is in itself almost an act,—
  • Being chasm-fire and cataract
  • Of the soul's utter depths unseal'd.
  • Yet woe to thee if once thou yield
  • Unto the act of doing nought!
  • How callous seems beyond revoke
  • The clock with its last listless stroke!
  • How much too late at last!—to snatch trace
  • 60 A glance at the foredawning watch
    Added TextThe hour on its forewarning face,
  • The thing thou hast not dared to do!. . . .
  • Behold, this may be thus! Ere true
  • It prove, arise and bear thy yoke.
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  • Let lore of man's all Theology
  • Be to thy soul what it can be:
  • But know,—the Power that fashions man
  • Measured not out thy little span
  • For thee to take the meting-rod
  • In turn, and so approve on God
  • 70Thy science of Theometry.
  • To God at best, to Chance at worst,
  • Give thanks for good things, last as first.
  • But windstrown blossom is that good
  • Whose apple is not gratitude.
  • Even if no prayer uplift thy face,
  • Let the sweet right to render grace
  • As thy soul's cherished child be nurs'd.
  • Didst ever say, “Lo, I forget”?
  • Such thought was to remember yet.
  • 80As in a gravegarth, count to see
  • The monuments of memory.
  • Be this thy soul's appointed scope:—
  • Gaze onward without claim to hope,
  • Nor, gazing backward, brook court regret.

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Chimes.
I.
  • Amber, jewel and amethyst,
  • And all for my lady's wrist.
  • The amethyst and the amber fair,
  • And all for my lady's hair.
  • Argent amber and amethyst,
  • And all for my lady's wrist.
  • Argent's heavy and amber rare,
  • And all for my lady's hair.
II.
  • A honey-cell's in the honeysuckle,
  • 10And the honey-bee knows it well.
  • The honey-comb has a heart of honey,
  • And the humming bee's so bonny.
  • A honey-flower's the honeysuckle,
  • And the bee's in the honey-bell.
  • The honeysuckle is sucked of honey,
  • And the bee is heavy and bonny.
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III.
  • Honey-flowers for the honey-comb
  • And the honey bee's from home.
  • A honeycomb and a honeyflower,
  • 20And the bee shall have his hour.
  • A honeyed heart for the honeycomb
  • And the humming bee flies home.
  • A heavy heart in the honey flower,
  • And the bee has had his hour.
IV.
  • Brown shell first for the butterfly
  • And a bright wing by and by.
  • Butterfly, good bye to your shell,
  • And, bright wings, speed you well.
  • Bright lamplight for the butterfly
  • 30And a burnt wing by and by.
  • Butterfly, alas for your shell,
  • And bright wings, fare you well.
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V.
  • Lost love-labour and lullaby,
  • And lowly let love lie.
  • Lost love-morrow and love-fellow
  • And love's life lying low.
  • Lovelorn labour and life laid by
  • And lowly let love lie.
  • Late love-longing and life-sorrow
  • 40And love's life lying low.
VI.
  • Beauty's body and benison
  • With a bosom-flower new blown.
  • Bitter beauty and blessing bann'd
  • With a breast to burn and brand.
  • Beauty's bower in the dust o'erblown
  • With a bare white breast of bone.
  • Barren beauty and bower of sand
  • With a blast on either hand.
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VII.
  • Buried bars in the breakwater
  • 50And bubble of the brimming weir.
  • Body's blood in the breakwater
  • And a buried body's beir.
  • Buried bones in the breakwater
  • And bubble of the brimming brawling weir.
  • Bitter tears in the breakwater
  • And a breaking heart to bear.
VIII.
  • Hollow heaven and the hurricane
  • And hurry of the heavy rain.
  • Hurried clouds in the hollow heaven
  • 60And a heavy rain hard-driven.
  • The heavy rain it hurries amain
  • And heaven and the hurricane.
  • Hurrying wind o'er the heaven's hollow
  • And the heavy rain to follow.

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Filippo Bourke Marston

eximio Poetæ cœcigine

me carminibus incitunti
Deleted Text
  • Sweet Poet, thou of whom these years that roll
  • Must one day yet the burdened birthright learn,
  • And by the darkness of thine eyes discern
  • How piercing was the light within thy soul;—
  • Gifted apart, thou goest to the great goal,
  • A cloud-bound radiant spirit, strong to earn,
  • Light-reft, that prize for which fond myriads yearn
  • Vainly light-blest,—the Seër's aureole.
  • And doth thine ear, divinely dowered to catch
  • 10 All spheral sounds in thy song blent so well,
  • Still hearken for my voice's slumbering spell
  • With wistful love? Ah! let the Muse now snatch
  • My wreath for thy young brows, and bend to watch
  • Thy veiled transfiguring sense's miracle.
Oct. 1878
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Note: DGR has crossed out duplicate erasures of rejected titles in the upper right corner. One erasure is clearly different but is indecipherable. At the bottom of the page, a line and "x" indicate where additional material, presumably written on the facing page, was to be inserted after the third stanza. However, that facing page was not preserved.
Manuscript Addition: 5
Added Text9
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A Life Parting

Two Partings         Parted Presence


Added TextParted Presence
  • Love, I speak to your heart,
  • Your heart that is always here.
  • Oh draw me deep to its sphere,
  • Though you and I are apart;
  • And yield, by the spirit's art,
  • All Each distant gift s that are is dear.
  • O love, my love, you are here!
  • Your eyes are afar to-day,
  • Yet, love, look now in mine eyes.
  • 10 Two hearts sent forth may despise
  • All dead things by the way.
  • All between is decay,
  • Dead hours and this hour that dies,
  • O love, look deep in mine eyes!
  • Your hands to-day are not here,
  • Yet lay them, love, in my hands.
  • The hourglass sheds its sands
  • All day for the dead hours' bier;
  • But now, as two hearts draw near,
  • 20 This hour like a flower expands.
  • O love, your hands in my hands!
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  • Your voice is not on the air,
  • Yet, love, I can hear your voice:
  • It bids my heart to rejoice
  • As knowing your heart is there,—
  • A music sweet to declare
  • The truth of your steadfast choice.
  • O love, how sweet is your voice!
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  • To-day your lips are afar,
  • Yet press drawmy lips to them, love.
  • Around, beneath, and above,
  • Is frost to bind and to bar;
  • But where I am and you are,
  • Desire and the fire thereof.
  • O kiss me, kiss me, my love!
  • Your heart is never away,
  • 30 But ever with mine, for ever,
  • For ever without endeavour,
  • To-morrow, love, as to-day;
  • Two blent hearts never astray,
  • Two souls no power may sever,
  • Together, O my love, for ever!

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A Death Parting          II 7

II.          Worlds-apart         The Water Willow

II A Death-Parting
  • Leaves and rain and the days of the year,
  • ( Water-willow and wellaway,)
  • All these fall, and my soul gives ear,
  • And she is hence who once was here.
  • ( With a wind blown night and 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 face seemed pressed to mine.
  • 10 ( With a wind blown day & night.)
  • O love, of my death my life is fain;
  • ( The willows wave on the water-way,)
  • Your cheek and mine are cold in the rain,
  • But warm they'll be when we meet again.
  • ( With a wind blown night & day.)
  • Mists are heaved and cover the sky;
  • ( The willows wail in the waning light,)
  • O loose your lips, leave space for a sigh,—
  • They seal my soul, I cannot die.
  • 20 ( With a wind blown day and night.)
  • Leaves and rain and the days of the year,
  • ( Water-willow and wellaway,)
  • All still fall, and I still give ear,
  • And she is hence, and I am here.
  • ( With a wind blown night and day.)

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Spheral Change.
  • In this new shade of Death, the show
  • Passes me still of form and face;
  • Some bent, some gazing as they go,
  • Some swiftly, some at a dull pace,
  • Not one that speaks in any case.
  • If only one might speak!—the one
  • Who never waits till I come near;
  • But always seated all alone
  • As listening to the sunken air,
  • 10 Is gone before I come to her.
  • O dearest! while we lived and died
  • A living death in every day,
  • We Some hours we still were sometimes side by side,
  • And When where I was you too might stay
  • And rest and need not go away.
  • O nearest, furthest! Can there be
  • At length some hard-earned heart-won home,
  • Where,—exile changed for sanctuary,—
  • Our lot may fill indeed its sum,
  • 20 And you may wait and I may come?

  • We two may end our martyrdom
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9
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Sunset Wings
  • To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings
  • Cleaving the western sky;
  • Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings
  • Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings
  • Of strenuous flight must die.
  • Sun-steeped in fire, the homeward pinions sway
  • Above the dovecote-tops;
  • And clouds of starlings, ere they rest with day,
  • Sink, clamorous like mill-waters, at wild play,
  • 10 By turns in every copse:
  • Each tree heart-deep the wrangling rout receives,—
  • Save for the whirr within,
  • You could not tell the starlings from the leaves;
  • Then one great puff of wings, and the swarm heaves
  • Away with all its din.
  • Even thus Hope's hours, in ever-eddying flight,
  • To many a refuge tend;
  • With the first light she laughed, and the last light
  • Glows round her still; who natheless in the night
  • 20 At length must make an end.
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10
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  • And now the mustering rooks innumerable
  • Together sail and soar,
  • While for the day's death, like a tolling knell,
  • Unto the heart they seem to cry, Farewell,
  • No more, farewell, no more!
  • Is Hope not plumed, as 'twere a fiery dart?
  • Therefore,O And oh! thou dying day,
  • Even as thou goest must she too depart,
  • And Sorrow fold such pinions on the heart
  • 30 As will not fly away?
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A Song & Music.

  • O leave your hand where it lies cool
  • Upon the eyes whose lids are hot:
  • Its rosy shade is bountiful
  • Of silence, & assuages thought.
  • O lay your lips against your hand
  • And let me feel your breath through it,
  • While through the sense your song shall fit
  • The soul to understand.
  • The music lives upon my brain
  • 10 Between your hands within mine eyes;
  • It stirs your lifted throat like pain,
  • An aching pulse of melodies.
  • Lean nearer, let the music pause:
  • The soul may better understand
  • Your music, shadowed in your hand,
  • Now while the song withdraws.

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Three Shadows.

  • I looked and saw your eyes
  • In the shadow of your hair,
  • As a traveller sees the stream
  • In the shadow of the wood;
  • And I said, “My faint heart sighs,
  • Ah me! to linger there,
  • To drink deep and to dream
  • In that sweet solitude.”
  • I looked and saw your heart
  • 10 In the shadow of your eyes,
  • As a seeker sees the gold
  • In the shadow of the stream;
  • And I said, “Ah me! what art
  • Should win the immortal prize,
  • Whose want must make life cold
  • And Heaven a hollow dream?”
  • I looked and saw your love
  • In the shadow of your heart,
  • As a diver sees the pearl
  • 20 In the shadow of the sea;
  • And I murmured, not above
  • My breath, but all apart,—
  • “Ah! she you can love, sweet girl,
  • And does love, and loves is your love for me?”

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Alas, so long!

  • Ah! dear one, we were young so long,
  • It seemed that youth would never go,
  • For skies and trees were ever in song
  • And water in singing flow
  • In the days we never again shall know.
  • Alas, so long!
  • Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
  • Nay, but were we not were both young together?
  • Ah! dear one, I've been old so long,
  • 10 It seems that age is loth to part,
  • Though days and years have never a song,
  • And oh! have they still the art
  • To warm That warmed the pulses of heart to heart?
  • Alas, so long!
  • Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
  • Nay, but were we not were both young together.
  • Ah! dear one, you've been dead so long,—
  • How long until we meet again,
  • Where hours may never lose their song
  • 20 Nor flowers forget the rain
  • In that glad noonlight that never shall wane?
  • Alas, so long!
  • Ah! shall it be when then Spring weather,
  • And ah! shall we be young together?

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Adieu.
  • Waving whispering trees,
  • What do you say to the breeze
  • And what says the breeze to you?
  • 'Mid passing souls ill at ease,
  • Moving murmuring trees,
  • Would ye ever wave an Adieu?
  • Tossing torturous turbulent seas,
  • Winds that wrestle with these,
  • Echo heard in the shell,—
  • 10'Mid fleeting life ill at ease,
  • Restless ravening seas,—
  • Would the echo sigh Farewell?
  • Surging sumptuous skies,
  • For ever a new surprise,
  • Clouds eternally new,—
  • Is every flake that flies,
  • Widening wandering skies,
  • For a sign—Farewell, Adieu?
  • Sinking suffering heart
  • 20That know'st how weary thou art,—
  • Soul so fain for a flight,—
  • Aye, spread your wings to depart,
  • Sad soul and sorrowing heart,—
  • Adieu, Farewell, Goodnight.

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Insomnia.
  • Thin are the night-skirts left behind
  • By daybreak hours that onward creep,
  • And thin, alas! the shred of sleep
  • That wavers with the spirit's wind:
  • But in half-dreams that shift and roll
  • And still remember and forget,
  • My soul this hour has drawn your soul
  • A little nearer yet.
  • Our lives, most dear, are never near,
  • 10 Our thoughts are never far apart,
  • ThusThough all that draws us heart to heart
  • Seems fainter now and now more clear.
  • Tonight Love claims his full control,
  • And with desire and with regret
  • My soul this hour has drawn your soul
  • A little nearer yet.
  • Is there a home where heavy earth
  • Melts to bright air that breathes no pain,
  • Where water leaves no thirst again
  • 20And springing fire is Love's new birth?
  • If faith long bound to one true goal
  • May there at length its hope beget,
  • My soul that hour shall draw your soul
  • For ever nearer yet.

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Possession.

----
  • There is a cloud above the sunset hill,
  • That wends and makes no stay,
  • For its goal lies beyond the fiery west;
  • A lingering breath no calm can chase away,
  • The onward labour of the wind's last will;
  • A flying foam that overleaps the crest
  • Of the top wave: and in possession still
  • A further reach of longing; though at rest
  • From all the yearning years,
  • 10Together in the bosom of that day
  • Ye cling, and with your kisses drink your tears.

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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,—
  • 10 “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,
  • 20Or 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.”
Image of page [20v] page: [20v]
Note: Two unpublished stanzas are transcribed on this verso, but then cancelled by DGR.
Deleted Text
  • The Present is but one coil
  • Of a snake wherewith we strive:
  • It clings to our days all things alive
  • But drops them dead to the soul:
  • And yet it keeps as it goes
  • Some print of our moulding throes,
  • Some change from the vanished foes
  • Whose crown it wears for a spoil.
  • Still we say as we go,—
  • “Strange to think by the way,
  • Whatever there is to know,
  • That shall we know one day.”
  • Even as we writhe and strain,
  • The Future is onward roll'd
  • In the great snake's course, fold on fold:
  • Yet ah! do we scape the chain?
  • Or shall not each spark life forth-hurl'd
  • Again in new life flesh be furl'd,
  • And what we made of the world
  • Fall back on ourselves again?
  • Still we say as we go,—
  • “Strange to think by the way,
  • Whatever there is to know,
  • That shall we know one day.”
Image of page 21 page: 21
Actual Size: 21.8 x 18.1 inches
Paper Lineation: ruled
Actual Watermark: J ALLEN & SONS / SUPER FINE
  • What of the heart of Hate hate
  • That beats in thy heart
    Added Textto thy steps
    in thy breast, O Time?—
  • Red strife from the furthest prime,
  • And anguish of fierce debate;
  • War that shatters her slain,
  • 30 And peace that grinds them as grain,
  • And 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 love
  • That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?—
  • Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban
  • 40Of 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.”
Image of page [21v] page: [21v]
Note: blank page
Image of page 22 page: 22
Actual Size: 21.8 x 18.1 inches
Paper Lineation: ruled
Actual Watermark: J ALLEN & SONS / SUPER FINE
Note: DGR has a series of cancelled attempts at the poem's final refrain. Two of these are transcribed at the very foot of the page.
  • The sky leans dumb on the sea,
  • 50 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 wouldst say as we go,—
  • Atoms that nought can sever
  • What thoughts to think by the way?
  • From one world circling will
  • What Truth may there be to know
  • To that at its heart for ever
  • And shall we know it one day?
  • 60Yet never to know it still.
  • Added Text
  • We who say as we go,—
  • “Strange to think by the way,
  • Whatever there is to know,
  • That shall we know one day.”

Deleted Text
  • And what can/must our birthright be
  • O never from thee to sever
  • Blind thou wilt/ That wast & shalt be & art—
  • To throb at the heart for ever
  • Yet never to know thy heart

  • What words to say as we go?
  • What thoughts to think by the way?
  • What truth may there be to know,
  • And shall we know it one day?
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: lyrics.prinms.rad.xml
Copyright: Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections