Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: A Welcome, Original Contributions in Poetry and Prose
Author: Emily Faithfull, editor
Date of publication: 1863
Publisher: Emily Faithfull
Printer: Emily Faithfull

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

Transcription Gap: pages 1-117 (not by DGR)
page: [118]
Editorial Note (page ornament): First letter of first word in poem is an ornate block-T
LOST DAYS.

(SONNET.)
  • 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
  • 10God 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.”
D. G. Rossetti.
Transcription Gap: pages 119-291 (not by DGR)
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: pr1145.w35.rad.xml