Sonnets and Fragments (Princeton/Troxell bound manuscript volume) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections D. G. ROSSETTI <lb/> SONNETS & FRAGMENTS<lb/> THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1848-1881 [i-iii], 1-20 The manuscripts were posthumously gathered and bound in this volume; they date from various periods. DGR Princeton University Library 23291, 23292 The book was bound by Charles Fairfax Murray and passed to the library through the Troxell collection bequest. Commentary
Introduction

This volume is a heterogeneous collection of poetical and prose materials bound together by Charles Fairfax Murray after DGR's death. The collection is especially interesting for the set of notebook pages gathered here. Comparing these disbound pages with other notebook materials, one can see clearly that DGR (a) used his notebooks as sites for scripting poetical ideas and fragments, and (b) drafted in the notebooks parts of poems that were in a process of continuous development during the 1870s.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

book plate of Charles Fairfax Murray D G Rossetti Sonnets and Fragments original MSS with two drawings by DGR and 25 MSS Charles Fairfax Murray's note in upper right hand corner. The drawings have been removed from the materials. pasted down typed identifying label Spring Marillier p. 4 written 1873 pub. Athenaeum 30 May 1874 Thames Valley Sonnets WMR's pencil note.

ROSSETTI (DANTE G.). Sonnets and Fragments. The Original Manuscript with 2 two drawings by D. G. Rossetti, About 24 25 Manuscripts.

 blank page blank page Engraved bust portrait of DGR 21.8 x 18 cm ruled J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE [?] Additional line variation written by DGR at bottom left corner of the page. [?] Note by another hand in a lighter ink in the lower right corner of the page. Spring ----------- Soft-littered is the new-year's lambing-fold, And in the hollowed haystack at its side The shepherd lies o'nights now, wakeful-eyed At the ewes' travailing call through the dark cold. The young rooks cheep 'mid the thick caw o'the old: And near unpeopled streamsides, on the ground, By her spring-cry the moorhen's nest is found, Where the drained flood-lands flaunt their marigold. Chill are the gusts to which the pastures cower, And chill the current where the young reeds stand As green and close as the young wheat on land: Yet here the cuckoo and the cuckoo-flower Pledge to the heart Spring's perfect imminent hour Whose breath shall soothe you like your dear one's hand. --------------- blank page [?] Note on the back of the sonnet "Spring," possibly by Charles Fairfax Murray. 19.1 x 22 cm ruled whit 10 12/35 DGR's numeration for placing the poem. Place de la Bastille, Paris. --- How dear the sky has been above this place! Small treasures of this sky that we see here Seen weak through prison-bars from year to year; Eyed with a painful prayer upon God's grace To save, and tears that stayed along the face Lifted at sunset. Yea, how passing dear, Those nights when through the bars a wind left clear The heaven, and moonlight soothed the limpid space. So was it, till one night the secret kept Safe in low vault and stealthy corridor Was blown abroad upon swift tongues on gospel-tongues of flame. O ways of God, mysterious evermore! How many on this spot have cursed & wept That all might stand here now & own thy Name. blank page 22.1 x 18 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE Winter. How large that thrush looks on the bare thorn-tree! A swarm of such, three little months ago, Had hidden in the leaves and let none know Save by the outburst of their minstrelsy. The A white flake here and there—a snow-lily Of last night's frost—our naked flower-beds hold; And for a rose-flower on the purple darkling mould The redbreast gleams, —poor hungry wanderer he! The current rattles at its shudders to its ice-bound sedge: Where the ice splits Nipped in their bath, the stiff stark reeds one by one Flash each its clinging diamond in the sun: Like wealthy withered fingers: while the sedge Sails to the blast which for this winter's pledge Shall leave memorial forest-king's o'erthrown. While winds afar, for winter's sovereign pledge While winds as far &c. 'Neath gales winds which for this winter's sovereign pledge Shall curb great king-masts to the water's ocean's edge And leave memorial forest-king's o'erthrown. blank page 18 x 22.5 cm ruled white Czar Alexander the Second. <lb/>13th March, 1881. ------------ From him did forty thousand million serfs, endow'd Each with six feet of death-claimed due soil, receive Rich freeborn lifelong land, whereon to sheave Their country's harvest. Who today aloud Demand of Heaven their Father's blood,—sore bow'd With tears and thrilled with wrath; and born to achieve, On every guilty head without reprieve All torment by his edicts disallow'd. He stayed the knout's red-ravening fangs; & first Of Russian traitors, his own murderers go White to the tomb. While he,—laid foully low With limbs red-lopped, with blood-clogged brain which nurs'd The His nation's charter,—from full Nihil flown, No Nought now finds now,—a God's [?] at God's the throne. ------------- blank page 342 vol 1 pagination notation in unknown hand 16.5 x 7.4 cm white EY & darkened The second manuscript on the page is unwatermarked and measures 18.2 x 11.1 cm And not more lightly or more true Fall there the dancers' feet Than fall her cards on upon the bright board With As 'twere a heart's measured that beat. Deftly The fingers let them softly softly through,— Smooth polished easy/? silent things; And each one as it fell falls reflects At the sun-rise, in 1848 ------------ God said, Let there be light; and there was light. In the broad ? with ? hear Nature sing Then heard I sounds as though the Earth did sing Even as a calm bird doth upon the wing And the Earth's angel cried upon the wing: I saw priests fall together and turn white, And covered in the dust from the sun's sight A king I spied, and yet another king. I said: “The round world keeps its balancing: On this globe, they and we are opposite,— If it is day with us, with them 'tis night.” Still, France, in thy just pride, remember this:— Thou hadst not made that thy sons' sons shall ask What the word king may mean in their day's task,— But for the light that led: and if light is, It is because God said, Let there be light. The verso of the second manuscript is blank. The verso of the first manuscript scrap shows the cancelled epigraph and opening of “The Card-Dealer”.

“And the name of the first siren is Telxiope,— she it is who sings of high honour; the name of the second is Telsinoe, and riches is her song; and the third is named Aglaophemia, and her singing is all of pleasure and solace. And they three oftentimes sing together.”

Travells of King Ulixes—(1550)

 Ambition, cupidité, Et délicieuse volupté, Sont les soeurs de la destinée Après la vingt-première année.

<foreign lang="french">(Calendrier de la Vie)</foreign> , 1630.

 Could you not drink her eyes gaze like wine?— [?] there [?] air 18.1 x 11.5 cm 18.1 x 22 cm ruled white SUPER J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE The alternate version of lines 7-8 is written at the foot of the page. Astarte Syriaca Mystery: lo! betwixt the sun and moon Astarte of the Syrians: Venus Queen Ere Grecian Venus Aphrodite was. In silver sheen Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon Of bliss whereof the earth and heaven and earth commune: And from her neck's inclining flower-stem lean Love-freighted lips, and absolute eyes that wean The pulse of hearts to the sphere's dominant tune. Torch-bearing, her sweet ministers compel All thrones of light beyond the sky and sea, The witnesses of Beauty's face to be: That face, of Love's all-penetrative spell Amulet, talisman and oracle,— Betwixt the sun and moon a mystery. and eyes that see the unseen,— Their gaze instinct with the sphere's dominant tune. blank page 361 pagination notation in unknown hand 22.2 x 17.4 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE 10/22 20 DGR's numeration for placing the poem <foreign lang="italian">Proserpina.<lb/> (Per un Quadro)</foreign>. ---- Lungi è la luce che in sù questo muro Mi giunge Rifrange appena, un breve istante scorta Del mio rio palazzo alla lontana soprana porta. Lungi quei fiori d'Enna, O lido oscuro, Dal frutto tuo fatal per cui Snaturo che omai mè duro Lungi quel cielo dal tartareo manto Che quì mi cuopre: e lungi ahi lungi ahi quanto Le notti che saran dai dì che furo! Lungi da me mi sento; e ognor sognando, Cerco e ricerco, e resto ascoltatrice; E qualche cuore a qualche anima dice, (Di cui mi giunge il suon di quando in quando, Continuamente insieme sospirando,)— “Oimè per te, Proserpina infelice!” blank page 22.2 x 17.9 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE The cancelled version for line 11 are at the foot of the page. 4 13 DGR's numeration for the placement of the poem. <del>The Antonine Needles</del> <add>Tiber, Nile — Thames.</add> ----------- The head and hands of murdered Cicero, Above his seat high in the Forum hung, Drew jeers and burning tears. When on the rung Of a swift-mounted ladder, all aglow, Fluvia, Mark Antony's shameless wife, with show Of foot firm-poised and gleaming arm upflung, Bade her sharp needle pierce that godlike tongue Whose speech fed Rome even as the Tiber's flow. Ah! And thou, Cleopatra's Needle, that hadst thrid Great skirts of Time ere she and Antony hid Dead hope!—and hast thou too reached, surviving death, Our A city of sweet speech scorned,—on whose chill stone Keats withered, Coleridge pined, and Chatterton, Breadless, with poison froze the God-deriv'd fired breath? --- thou seekst, from Egypt's eldest death [???] from thine eldest death blank page 22.2 x 17.9 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE DGR writes alternative rhymes for line 5 at the upper left corner(in ink) and in the middle of the long pencil list at the bottom of the page; for line 14 at the lower left (in pencil), and for line 13 (in pencil) at the bottom of the page slightly to the left. DGR also copies variants of line 11 at the foot of the page. slow/blow know/flow alternate possible rhymes for line 5, the second pair in pencil at the bottom of the page brave/gave/rave alternate possible rhymes for line 14 tear?/jeer?/know/flow/hear/near/spear/clear alternate possible rhymes for line 13, with two trials for line 5 Cassandra<lb/> (<hi rend="u">Two Sonnets for a Design</hi>) Rend, rend thine hair, Cassandra: he will go. Yea, rend thy garments, wring thine arms, and cry From Troy still towered to the unreddened sky. See, all but she that bore thee mock thy woe:— He most whom that fair woman arms, and now with show Clenches her angry Of wrath on her bent brows; for in this place This hour thou bad'st all men in Helen's face The ravished ravishing prize of Death to know. No What eyes, no what ears hath sweet Andromache, Save for her Hector's form and step?—as dear Thrice dear, his mouth that owns yet feels the kiss she gave? He goes. Cassandra's words beat heavily Like crows above his crest, and at his ear Ring hollow in the shield that shall not save. as dear Thrice dear, her arms still clasp the babe he gave. as spear And helm [?], the face of Fate to brave. as tear On tear make salt the sweet warm last kiss he gave. blank page 22.2 x 17.9 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE Cassandra <lb/>(<hi rend="u">for a Design</hi>*) Even so, great Hector, go! Yea, “O Hector, gone, gone, gone! O Hector, thee Two chariots wait, in Troy long blessed & curs'd; And Grecian sword and Phrygian sand athirst Crave from thy veins the blood of victory. One brand upon our hearth long time had we, Lit for the roof-tree's ruin. Lo! to-day The ground-stone quits the wall,—the wind hath way,— And higher and higher the wings of fire are free. O Paris, Paris! O thou burning brand, Thou beacon of the sea whence Venus rose, Lighting thy race to shipwreck! Even that hand Wherewith she took thine apple let her close Within thy curls at last, and while Troy glows Stretch Lift thee her trophy to the sea and land.”

* The design represents The subject is Cassandra prophesying among her kindred, while Hector goes to leaves them for his last battle. Helen is arming It is on the platform of a fortress, from which the Trojan troops are [?] to battle marching out. Helen is arming Paris; and Andromache has just holds the child in her arms.

 359 Page number written apparently by DGR The same was he who, lashed to his own mast, Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd, Till music died upon fainted on the inveterate sea Say, soul, and doth no fatal song for us, Prove yet than any crown more rapturous, No d Death's lip shame the cheek of Victory? 22.3 x 18 cm ruled white Two of the cancelled readings, for lines 8 and 13, are at the bottom of the page. “Found.” <lb/> (For a Picture.) “There is a budding morrow in midnight:”— So sang our Keats, our English nightingale. And here, as lamps across the bridge turn pale In London's smokeless resurrection-light, Dark breaks to dawn. But o'er the deadly blight Of love deflowered & sorrow of none avail Which makes this man gasp and this woman quail, Can day with from darkness ever again unite take flight ever again grow light? Ah! gave not these two hearts their mutual pledge, Under one mantle sheltered 'neath the hedge In gloaming courtship? And alas O God! to-day He does but only knows he holds her;—and but what part Life Can life now can take? She cries in her own locked heart,— in her shut heart “Leave me—I do not know you—go away!” blank page 22.1 x 17.7 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE Print this after no 8 The Passover Pandora page 134 Mary Magdalene <lb/>at the Door of Simon the Pharisee <lb/>(For a Design.*) “Why wilt thou cast the roses from thine hair? Nay, be thou all a rose,—wreathe, lips, and cheek. Nay, not this house,—yon that banquet-house we seek; See how they kiss and enter; come thou there. This delicate day of love we now two will share Till at our ear love's whispering night shall speak. And hear love's night in musical numbers speak What, sweet one,—hold'st thou still the foolish freak? Nay, when I kiss thy feet they'll leave the stair.” “Oh loose me! See'st thou not my Bridegroom's face That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss, My hair, my tears I bring He craves to-day:—and oh! What words can tell what other day and place Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His? He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!”

*In the design Mary has left a festal procession, and is ascending by a sudden impulse the steps of the house where she sees Christ. Her lover has followed her and is trying to turn her back.

 blank page 18 x 9.6 cm ruled white & SONS FINE J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE Two fragmentary manuscript leaves pasted on one page. The first, unwatermarked, measures 18. 6.1cm., and is from <xref doc="1-1854.rad" workcode="1-1854">“Love's Nocturn”</xref> ; the second, from <xref doc="45-1871" workcode="45-1871">“Smithereens”</xref> is described in the notes above. Song shall tell how glad and strong Is the night she soothes alway; Moan shall grieve with that parched tongue Of the brazen hours of day: Sounds as of the springtide they, Moan and song, While the chill months long for May. <add>Mammon's Ring-Posy</add>

(1)

Uncertain-aged Miss Thereabouts, Tough fossil of her teens, Has lifted up with saving hand The ruined Smithereens.

(2)

Down the dark steps of debt that hand Sped like an angel's wing, Deep dowered with gold, & for itself Brought back a golden ring.

(3)

Ah lovely Lucy Lovandove, That ring's a snake, and means Woe without end: therein lies crushed Thy heart—to smithereens! My soul this hour has drawn thy soul A little nearer yet. ----------- And thin, alas! the shred of sleep That wavers with the spirit's wind. ---------------- To God at best, to Chance at worst, Give thanks for good things, last as first. But wind-strown 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. 18 x 22.2 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE Yon' Cur's not rid of his own name, Though he to others give the same. Yon Yelper Scribbler leaves his works to the Posteriors of Posterity; Though sounds may reach him from the sphere Which seem to his long listening ears Most like the trumpet-blast of Fame. ---------- Se ne va la gioventù Vidi come se ne va --------------- The A Sonnet is a moment's monument,— Memorial from the Soul's eternity To one dead deathless hour—

Like a coin (face & obverse)—memories connected with the coin &c.

 ---------------

As the features of a child recall now the father & now the mother & yet are different from both, so in a work may be traced this or that passion or experience of its author's life, though all be turned to a fresh purpose.

 --------------- (for Michael Scott's Wooing)

Ground-swell owing to a storm far out in mid sea. Sea quite calm to horizon, except on the beach where it rises falls & eddies in huge wrestling waves. Effect like the outer dying circle when a pebble has been dropped in rest centre of a pool.

That tempest had its pebble dropped A hundred miles at sea &c. 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 such should/must should not be? Even so: but should if the two parts run Into each other and grow one, Then comes the curtain's cue to fall. ----------- Say, art thou proud? How feel'st thou fit Thy mood with flatterers' silk-spun wit? Does the sweet voice exalt thy crest, As with the truth 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. ----------- One step in knowledge 'tis to grow Quite certain that thou dost not know How callous seems beyond revoke The clock with its last listless stroke! How much too late at length!—to snatch A glance at the returning patch, The thing for hours thou [???] darest not do! This may Behold, this may be thus! Ere true It prove, arise and bear thy yoke. spoke/broke 18 x 19 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE Who knoweth not love's sounds and silences? --------------- and we Whom trees that knew your sires shall cease to know And still stand silent --------------- The golden kingcup-fields with silence edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. --------------- Tragical shadow & the realm of fear --------------- One bliss but tarries for another's birth; As the last cowslip in the fields we see With the first corn-poppy. ---------------

Amen to the Omen

 --------------- As balmy as the breath of her you love When deep between her breasts it comes to you. --------------- Some close-companioned inarticulate hour Whose When twofold silence was the song of love. --------------- Her hands lay open in the long deep grass, And the sweet points looked through like rosy flowers Even as a child, of sorrow that we give The dead, but little at his heart can find, Since without need of thought in his clear mind Their turn it is to die and his to live:— --------------- I looked and saw the love At the bottom of your heart As a diver sees a pearl At the bottom of the sea:

&c.

--------------- And I murmured, not above My breath, but all apart, Ah! she can love, sweet girl, And does love, and loves me. --------------- How callous is the clock with its last stroke --------------- Faint like a flower the attenuated dream. --------------- the fire Put forth its withering fingers of pure flame --------------- O happy he for whom first love & last Are but one love for ever! 18 x 22.2 cm ruled white J ALLEN & SONS SUPER FINE With furnaces Of instant flame & petals of pure light --------------- Would God I knew there were a god to thank When thanks arise in me --------------- Deep in the sun-searched grass the dragon-fly Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky --------------- The cuckoo-throb, the heartbeat of the Spring --------------- Even as the dreariest swamps, in sweet Springtide, Are most with Mary-flowers beatified The rosebud's blush that leaves it as she it grows Into the full-eyed fair unblushing rose. --------------- Or reading in some sunny nook Where grass-blade shadows fall across her book. --------------- On the first day the priest Could find no heart in the beast ? And two on the second day. --------------- I saw the Sibyl at Cumæ” (One said) “with mine own eye. She hung in a cagex & read her runex To all the passers-by: Said the boys, ‘What wouldst thou, Sibyl?’ She answered ‘I would die.’” ---------------

xsat on a stage xlife-runes

 “I hate” says over and above “This is a soul that I might love.” None lightly says “My friend”; even so Be jealous of that name, “my foe.” An enemy for an enemy, But dogs for what a dog can be. Hold those at heart, and time shall prove. --------- These upheaved forest-trees moss-grown to-day Whose roots are hillocks where the children play --------- Where the poets all, Echoes of singing nature, list her call. --------- Hast ever say, “Lo, I forget”? Such thought were to remember yet. --------- The loves that from our hands have dropped away, Even as the beads of a told rosary. ---------

[?????]

 --------- Of natural foods she nothing needs, A grain of rice rice a day

(Aura & Aurora)

 --------- Some manuscript notes in unknown hand, perhaps WMR, querying some DGR manuscript scraps DGR scripted the first three stanzas originally with stanza 2 preceding stanza 3. The kine might stem the tide & live The nags might take no ill, But it's woe the day for a fair woman Laid half-way up the hill. All white & still & dumb she lay Six spans above the flood It's “Janet, if ye be yourself, Rise in the name of God!” Often he's met her by the bank And often by the brae, And raced with her in April rains And passed the birds in May. ---------

after “beside his chin”

But woe's my heart ever near for Father John And the saints he clamoured to: [???] There's never a saint but Christopher To Might hale such buttocks through! --------- “They told me you were dead, Janet,— So long you left from me.” “They told me you were false, Lord Sands, And I came here to die?” This page and the next contain four separate small leaves, on each of which are drafted different parts of DGR's poem, "A Last Confession." Beside a Before some [fresh?] Madonna newly decked, Tinselled & gewgawed, a slight German toy, I saw her kneel, still praying. At my step She rose, and side by side we left the church. I was much moved, & sharply questioned her Of her transferred devotion; and at best but she seemed Stubborn and ? heedless; till she lightly laughed And “Aye, the old Madonna?” so she said, She had my old thoughts,—this one has my new.” Then silent to the soul I walked with her held my way And from the fountains of the public place Unto the pigeon-haunted pinnacles, Bright wings and water winnowed the bright air; And stately with her laugh's subsiding smile She stepped went, with well-poised feet & gleaming arms And hands held light before her; and the face Which long had made a day in all my life's night Seemed night in day to me; as all men's eyes Turned on her beauty, and she seemed to tread Beyond the my heart to the world made for her. Father, the day I speak of was the first For weeks that I had borne her company Into the Duomo; and those weeks had been Much troubled, for then first the thought arose That she so loved was growing changed & cold. [?] And as we loitered on that day, I bent My eyes on the fair image, and I said Within my heart, “Oh warm her heart to me!” And so I left her to her prayers, and went To gaze on the great upon the pride of Monza's shrine, Where in the sacristy the day still falls Upon the Iron Crown of Italy, How long the night, how fallen on the ? On whose crowned heads the day has closed, nor yet That make it/ May ? upon another head to crown The hour gilds another head to crown. But coming back, I wondered when I saw The image [?] Lady sovereign [?]That image stand alone; and till further off Yet one more only thought in my mind thing comes back on me tonight Were worth the ?/telling Which I may tell you: for it bore my soul Dread firstlings of the brood that rend it now. It cha happened once when then that in our wanderings We dwelt at Monza, far away from home, If home we had: and in the Duomo there I sometimes entered with her when she prayed. There was/There dwells a sweet An image of Our Lady dwells there, wrought In marble by some great Italian hand In the great days when she and Italy Sat on one throne together: and by him to her She stood ? and told ? And to none else my loved one told her heart. And many thoughts She was a woman then; And as she knelt below the sacred fane They seemed Her sweet brow in the neighbour's shadow there,— They seemed two kindred things kindred forms that our dear land (Whose work still serves the world for miracles) Blent with herself in wondrous ? After “Then his kiss”. The flood was creeping round their feet. “O Janet come, love, come away! The hall is warm for the marriage-rite, The bed for the birthday.” “Nay, but I hear your mother cry, ‘Go, bring this bride to bed! And would she christen her babe unborn, So wet she comes to wed?’ “I'll be your wife to cross your doors And meet your mother's e'e. We plighted troth to wed i' the kirk, And it's there I'll wed with ye.” blank page