Test RAD for Adds and Dels

Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Test RAD for Adds and Dels: a piece of sonnets.lcms.rad

Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Date: various

Type of Manuscript: miscellaneous collection

Collation: [1]-[28]

Note: The manuscript is paginated in an unknown hand in numbers given in brackets.

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

page: [22]

Tree and Stream

I said: Not so, but let the young fruit be:
Even as thou sayest, it is ripe sweet and red
But yet it shall ripen still [illegible]. The trees' bent— head
Notes in the stream its own fecundity
And bides the hour day of fulness. Shall not we,
In other hours [?] [illegible] [illegible] At heat's high hour in close consummate shade
Still cut [illegible] pluck claim our fruit before the summer fade
And set among the boughs eat it from the branch and praise the tree?

I say: Alas! the fruit that met wooed the sun
Has hung too long and floats adown the stream.
Lo [?] the last clusters! Pluck them every one,
Nor [illegible] And trust let us sup with summer, , for ere the gleam
Of autumn bid the drowsy forest dream
Of the sea's wind's sorrow and wail in unison.

Of [illegible] branches set the swallows sorrow autumn set the year's past ere the gleam fill
And the woods wails like with echoes of the sea.

page: [23]

Note: This appears to be what remains of DGR's original draft manuscript. As per his usual practice, DGR wrote on the left side of the manuscript so that he could use the right side for revisions. The manuscript dates from 1848 or early 1849. What appears here as stanza three was subsequently dropped before DGR printed the poem in 188; it originally was written as stanza 2, before the additions to the MS exhibited here.

Added Text: [24]

Description: Page number added by the compiler of the MS, indicating either a missing leaf or a mistake in numbering.

The Bride's Chamber Talk
(before the bridals from noon till two. .)

“Sister, said busy Amelotte
To listless Hélénonr, Adelon

Deleted Text

“Beyond theyour casement, here the wheat

Stoops as if listening for your feet,

And the long noon stands still for heat.”

Added Text

“Along your bridal path, the wheat

Bends as if listening for your feet,

And the long noon stands still for heat.”

Added Text

Amelotte laughted into the glass

And her eyes sought the sun.

But where the twain the wall some shelter made

Silent, as though she were afraid,

Sat Helenon within the shade.

“Ah! sister, sister Hélénon!
Keep watch, through all those fields,
Upon your bridesmaid at your side,
For if I wear my years with pride
I too this day may be a bride.”

ButYet even in shade was enough light
To shut out rest or peace
From the grand bridal-chamber, which
Was like the inner altar-niche
Whose darkness worship has made rich.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1

File Name: sonnets.lcms