Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Delphi Poets Series

By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The famous Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti was also a celebrated poet, scholar and translator, whose works influenced the European Symbolists, serving as a precursor of the Aesthetic movement. His early poetry was influenced by John Keats, whilst his later verses were characterised by the complex interlinking of thought and feeling, as demonstrated by his masterpiece, the sonnet sequence, ‘The House of Life’. This volume of the bestselling Delphi Poets Series presents the complete written works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with beautiful illustrations, rare works and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)
* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Rossetti's life and works
* Brief introduction to the poet and his work
* Excellent formatting of the poems
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry
* The rare translations of Italian poets, including the complete translation of Dante Alighieri's LA VITA NUOVA
* Easily locate the poems you want to read
* Includes Rossetti's rare prose works, including the scarce short story – first time in digital print
* Features three biographies - discover Rossetti's literary life
* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres
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CONTENTS:
The Poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
BRIEF INTRODUCTION: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
The Poems
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Prose
HAND AND SOUL
THE STEALTHY SCHOOL OF CRITICISM
The Biographies
ROSSETTI by Lucien Pissarro
RECOLLECTIONS OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI by T. Hall Caine
Extract from ‘FIGURES OF SEVERAL CENTURIES’ by Arthur Symons
Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delphi Classics
• Release date: Sep 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910630501

Book preview

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

(1828-1882)

Contents

The Poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

BRIEF INTRODUCTION: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

The Poems

LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

The Prose

HAND AND SOUL

THE STEALTHY SCHOOL OF CRITICISM

The Biographies

ROSSETTI by Lucien Pissarro

RECOLLECTIONS OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI by T. Hall Caine

Extract from ‘FIGURES OF SEVERAL CENTURIES’ by Arthur Symons

© Delphi Classics 2014

Version 1

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

By Delphi Classics, 2014

NOTE

When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

The Poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

38 Charlotte Street (now 105 Hallam Street), London — Rossetti’s birthplace

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting of his sister Christina with their mother, Frances Polidori, who was the sister of Lord Byron’s friend and physician, John William Polidori

The poet’s father, Gabriele Rossetti, a poet and political exile from Vasto, Abruzzo

BRIEF INTRODUCTION: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

by Richard Garnett

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828–1882), painter and poet, eldest son of Gabriele Rossetti and of Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori (1800–1886), was born on 12 May 1828, at 38 Charlotte Street, Portland Place. His full christian name was Gabriel Charles Dante, but the form which he gave it has become inveterate. Charles Lyell [q. v.], the father of the geologist, was his godfather. His father, born at Vasto in the kingdom of Naples on 28 Feb. 1783, had been successively librettist to the opera house and curator of antiquities in the Naples museum, but had been compelled to fly the country for his share in the insurrectionary movements of 1820 and 1821. After a short residence in Malta he came over to England in 1824, and established himself as a teacher of Italian. In 1826 he married the sister of John William Polidori [q. v.] In 1831 he was appointed professor of Italian in King’s College. He was a man of high character, an ardent and also a judicious patriot, and an excellent Italian poet; but he is perhaps best remembered by his attempts to establish the esoteric anti-papal significance of the ‘Divine Comedy.’ He published several works dealing with this question, namely a commentary on the ‘Divina Commedia,’ 1826–7 (2 vols.), ‘La Beatrice di Dante,’ 1842, and ‘Sullo Spirito Antipapale che produsse la riforma,’ 1832 (placed on the pontifical index and translated into English by Miss C. Ward, 1834, 2 vols). He died on 26 April 1854, leaving four children, Maria Francesca [see under Rossetti, Christina Georgina], Dante Gabriel, William Michael, and Christina Georgina [q. v.] Mr. W. M. Rossetti alone survives (1897).

Dante Rossetti’s environment — political, literary, and artistic — was such as to stimulate his precocious powers. At the age of five or six he composed three dramatic scenes entitled ‘The Slave,’ childish in diction, but correct in spelling and metre. At the age of eight he went to a preparatory school, and at nine to King’s College, which he left at thirteen, having made fair progress in the ordinary branches of knowledge. His reading at home was more important to him; his imagination was powerfully stimulated by a succession of romances, though he does not appear to have been then acquainted with any English poets except Shakespeare, Byron, and Scott. The influence of the last is visible in his boyish ballad of ‘Sir Hugh the Heron,’ written in 1840, and printed three years later at his maternal grandfather’s private press. Of artistic attempt we hear comparatively little; he was, however, taught drawing at King’s College by an eminent master, John Sell Cotman [q. v.], and upon leaving school in November 1841 he selected art as his profession. He spent four years at F. S. Cary’s drawing academy in Bloomsbury Street, where he attracted notice by his readiness in sketching ‘chivalric and satiric subjects.’ Neither there nor at the antique school of the Royal Academy, where he was admitted in 1846, was his progress remarkable. The fact appears to have been that in his impatience for great results he neglected the slow and tiresome but necessary subservient processes. His literary work was much more distinguished, for the translations from Dante and his contemporaries, published in 1861, were commenced as early as 1845. Up to this time he seems to have known little of Dante, notwithstanding his father’s devotion to him. By 1850 his translation of Dante was sufficiently advanced to be shown to Tennyson, who commended it, but he advised careful revision, which was given. His poetical faculty received about this time a powerful stimulus from his study of Browning and Poe, both of whom he idolised without imitating either. He would seem, indeed, to have owed more at this period to imaginative prose writers than to poets, although he copied the whole of Browning’s ‘Pauline’ at the British Museum. ‘The Blessed Damozel,’ ‘The Portrait,’ the splendid sonnets ‘Retro me Sathana’ and ‘The Choice,’ with other remarkable poems, were written about 1847. They manifest nothing of young poets’ usual allegiance to models, but are absolutely original — the product, no doubt, of the unparalleled confluence of English and Italian elements in his blood and nurture. The result was as exceptional as the process.

The astonishing advance in poetical powers from ‘Sir Hugh the Heron’ to ‘The Blessed Damozel’ had not been visibly attended by any corresponding development of the pictorial faculty, when in March 1848 Rossetti took what proved the momentous step of applying for instruction to Ford Madox Brown. His motive seems to have been impatience with the technicalities of academy training and the hope of finding a royal road to painting; great, therefore, was his disappointment when his new instructor set him to paint pickle-jars. The lesson was no doubt salutary, although, as his brother says, he never to the end of his life could be brought to care much whether his pictures were in perspective or not. More important was his introduction through the school of the Royal Academy to a circle of young men inspired by new ideas in art, by a resolve to abandon the conventionalities inherited from the eighteenth century, and to revive the detailed elaboration and mystical interpretation of nature that characterised early mediæval art. Goethe and Scott had already done much to impregnate modern literature with mediæval sentiment. A renaissance of the like feeling was visible in the pictorial art of Germany. But what in Germany was pure imitation became in England re-creation, partly because the English artists were men of higher powers. Little, however, would have resulted but for the fortune which brought Rossetti, Madox Brown, Woolner, Holman Hunt, and Millais together. The atmosphere of enthusiasm thus engendered raised all to greater heights than any could have attained by himself. By 1849 the student of pickle-jars had painted and exhibited at the free exhibition, Hyde Park Corner, a picture of high merit, ‘The Girlhood of Mary Virgin,’ which sold for 80l. One inevitable drawback was a spirit of cliquishness; another, which might have been avoided, was the assumption of the unlucky badge of ‘pre-Raphaelite,’ indicative of a feeling which, though Rossetti shared in early years to a marked degree, he very soon abandoned. No one could have less sympathy with the ugly, the formal, or the merely edifying in art, and his reproduction of nature was never microscopic. The virtues and failings of the ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ school were well displayed in the short-lived periodical ‘The Germ,’ four numbers of which appeared at the beginning of 1850, under the editorship of Rossetti’s brother William Michael, and to which he himself contributed ‘The Blessed Damozel’ and the only imaginative work in prose he completed, the delicate and spiritual story ‘Hand and Soul.’

In November 1852 Rossetti, who had at first shared a studio with Holman Hunt in Cleveland Street, and afterwards had one of his own in Newman Street, took the rooms at 14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars Bridge, which he continued to occupy until his wife’s death. The street is now pulled down. From 1849 to his father’s death in 1854 his history is one of steady progress in art and poetry, varied only by the attacks, now incomprehensible in their virulence, made by the press upon the pre-Raphaelite artists, and by a short trip to Paris and Belgium, which produced nothing but some extremely vivid descriptive verse. It is astonishing that he should never have cared to visit Italy, but so it was. The years were years of struggle; the hostile criticisms made his pictures difficult to sell, although ‘The Annunciation’ was among them. He eschewed the Royal Academy, and did not even seek publicity for his poems, albeit they included such masterpieces as ‘Sister Helen,’ ‘Staff and Scrip,’ and ‘The Burden of Nineveh.’ These alone proved that Rossetti had risen into a region of imagination where he had no compeer among the poets of his day. Rossetti did not want for an Egeria; he had fallen in love with Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, daughter of a Sheffield cutler and herself a milliner’s assistant, a young lady of remarkable personal attractions, who had sat to his friend Walter Deverell as the Viola of ‘Twelfth Night,’ and came to display no common ability both in verse and water-colour painting. Her constitution, unhappily, was consumptive, and delicacy of health and scantiness of means long deferred the consummation of an engagement probably formed about the end of 1851. She sat to him for most of the numerous Beatrices which he produced about this time. A beautiful portrait of her, from a picture by herself, is reproduced in the ‘Letters and Memoirs’ edited by his brother.

Rossetti’s partial deliverance from his embarrassments was owing to the munificence of a man as richly endowed with genius as he himself, and much more richly provided with the gifts of fortune. In spite of some prevalent misconceptions, it may be confidently affirmed that Mr. Ruskin had nothing whatever to do with initiating the pre-Raphaelite movement, and that even his subsequent influence upon its representatives was slight. It was impossible, however, that he should not deeply sympathise with their work, which he generously defended in the ‘Times;’ and the personal acquaintance which he could not well avoid making with Rossetti soon led to an arrangement by which Ruskin agreed to take, up to a certain maximum of expenditure, whatever work of Rossetti’s pleased him, at the same prices as Rossetti would have asked from an ordinary customer. The comfort and certainty of such an arrangement were invaluable to Rossetti, whose constant altercations with other patrons and with dealers bring out the least attractive side of his character. The arrangement lasted a considerable time: that it should eventually die lay in the nature of things. Ruskin was bound to criticise, and Rossetti to resent criticism. Before its termination, however, Mr. Ruskin, by another piece of generosity, had enabled Rossetti to publish (1861) his translations of the early Italian poets. Another important friendship made in these years of struggle was that with Sir Edward Burne-Jones, who came to Rossetti, as he himself had gone to Madox Brown, for help and guidance, and repaid him by introducing him to an Oxford circle destined to exercise the greatest influence upon him and receive it in turn. Its most important members were Mr. Swinburne and William Morris. Other and more immediately visible results of the new connection were the appearance of three of Rossetti’s finest poems in the ‘Oxford and Cambridge Magazine,’ to which Morris was an extensive contributor, and his share (1857) in the distemper decorations of the Oxford Union, which soon became a wreck, ‘predestined to ruin,’ says Mr. W. M. Rossetti, ‘by fate and climate.’ About the same time ‘The Seed of David,’ a triptych for Llandaff Cathedral, Rossetti’s only monumental work, representing the Infant Saviour adored as Shepherd and King, with pendants depicting David in both characters, was undertaken, though not completed for some time afterwards. It is most difficult to date Rossetti’s pictures from the variety of forms in which most of them exist, and the uncertainty whether to adopt as date that of the original sketch, or of some one of the completed versions. Generally speaking, however, his most inspired work may be referred to the decade between 1850 and 1860, especially the magnificent drawings illustrative of the ‘Vita Nuova.’ ‘Mary Magdalen,’ ‘Monna Rosa,’ ‘Hesterna Rosa,’ ‘How they met themselves,’ ‘Paolo and Francesca,’ ‘Cassandra,’ and the Borgia drawings may be added. These were the pictorial works in which Rossetti stands forth most distinctly as a poet. He may at a later period have exhibited even greater mastery in his other predominant endowment, that of colour; but the achievement, though great, is of a lower order. Another artistic enterprise of this period was his illustration of Tennyson, undertaken for Edward Moxon, in conjunction with Millais and other artists (1857). The fine drawings were grievously marred by the carelessness and mechanical spirit of the wood-engravers. He succeeded better in book illustration at a somewhat later date, especially in the matchless frontispiece to his sister’s ‘Goblin Market’ (1862). He was also labouring much, and not to his satisfaction, on his one realistic picture, ‘Found,’ an illustration of the tragedy of seduction, occupying the place among his pictures which ‘Jenny’ holds among his poems. It was never quite completed. Somewhat later he became interested in the undertaking of William Morris and Madox Brown, for that revival of art manufacture, which produced important results.

During this period he wrote little poetry, designedly holding his poetical gift in abeyance for the undivided pursuit of art. The ‘Early Italian Poets,’ however, went to press in 1861, and was greeted with enthusiasm by Mr. Coventry Patmore and other excellent judges. The edition was sold in eight years, leaving Rossetti 9l. the richer after the acquittal of his obligation to Mr. Ruskin. It was, however, reprinted in 1874 under the title of ‘Dante and his Circle, with the Italian Poets preceding him: a collection of Lyrics, edited and translated in the original metres.’ The book is a garden of enchanting poetry, steeped in the Italian spirit, but, while faithful to all the higher offices of translation, by no means so scrupulously literal as is usually taken for granted. The greatest successes are achieved in the pieces apparently most difficult to render, the ballate and canzoni. That these triumphs are due to genius and labour, and not to the accident of Rossetti’s Italian blood, is shown by the fact that he evinced equal felicity in his renderings of François Villon. The ‘Early Italian Poets’ comprised also the prose passages of the ‘Vita Nuova,’ admirably translated.

Rossetti’s marriage with Miss Siddal took place at Hastings on 23 May 1860. He had said, in a letter written a month previously, that she ‘seemed ready to die daily.’ He took her to Paris, and on their return they settled at his old rooms at Chatham Place. No length of days could have been anticipated for Mrs. Rossetti, but her existence closed prematurely on 11 Feb. 1862, from the effects of an overdose of laudanum, taken to relieve neuralgia. Rossetti’s grief found expression in a manner most characteristic of him, the entombment of his manuscript poems in his wife’s coffin. They remained there until October 1869, when he was fortunately persuaded to consent to their disinterment. Chatham Place had naturally become an impossible residence for him, and he soon removed to Tudor House, Cheyne Walk, a large house which for some time harboured three sub-tenants as well — his brother, Mr. Swinburne, and Mr. George Meredith. He occupied it for the rest of his life. For the seven years following his wife’s death Rossetti was an ardent collector of old furniture, blue china, and Japanese bric-à-brac. The same period proved one of great pictorial productiveness, and his partiality for single figures, generally more or less idealised portraits, increased. The place in this department which had been held by his wife and the beautiful actress, Miss Herbert, was now to a large extent filled by Mrs. William Morris; but many beauties in all ranks of society were proud to sit to him, as appears from the list given by his brother (Letters and Memoirs, i. 242–3). He hardly ever attempted ordinary portraiture, except of himself or some very intimate friend or near connection. Among the most famous of the single figures painted about this time may be mentioned ‘Beata Beatrix,’ ‘Monna Vanna,’ ‘Monna Pomona,’ ‘Il Ramoscello,’ ‘Venus Verticordia,’ and ‘Sibylla Palmifera.’ Of work on a grander scale there is little to notice, though some previous works were repeated with improvements. ‘The Return of Tibullus to Delia,’ one of the most dramatic of his productions of this period, exists only as a drawing; and he never carried out the intention he now entertained of making a finished picture from his magnificent drawing of ‘Cassandra.’ A work of still more importance fortunately was accomplished, the publication of his collected ‘Poems’ in 1870 (new edit. 1881). The new pieces fully supported the reputation of those which had already appeared in magazines; and the entire volume gave him, in the eyes of competent judges, a reputation second to that of no contemporary English poet after Tennyson and Browning.

Much of the remainder of Rossetti’s life is a tragedy which may be summed up in a phrase: ‘chloral and its consequences.’ Weak in health, suffering from neuralgic agony and consequent insomnia, he had been introduced to the drug by a compassionate but injudicious friend. Whatever Rossetti did was in an extreme, and he soon became entirely enslaved to the potion, whose ill effects were augmented by the whisky he took to relieve its nauseousness. His conduct under the next trouble that visited him attested the disastrously enfeebling effect of the drug upon his character. In October 1871 an article entitled ‘The Fleshly School of Poetry,’ and signed Thomas Maitland (soon ascertained to be a pseudonym for Mr. Robert Buchanan), appeared in the ‘Contemporary Review.’ In this some of Rossetti’s sonnets were stigmatised as indecent. Rossetti at first contented himself with a calm reply in the ‘Athenæum,’ headed ‘The Stealthy School of Criticism,’ and with a stinging ‘nonsense-verse’ hurled at the offender when he discovered his identity. But the republication of the article in pamphlet form, with additions, early in 1872, threw him completely off his balance. He fancied himself the subject of universal obloquy, and detected poisoned arrows in ‘Fifine at the Fair’ and the ‘Hunting of the Snark.’ On 2 June his brother was compelled to question his sanity, and he was removed to the house of Dr. Hake, ‘the earthly Providence of the Rossetti family in those dark days.’ Left alone at night, he swallowed laudanum, which he had secretly brought with him, and his condition was not ascertained until the following afternoon. Rossetti’s recovery was due to the presence of mind of Ford Madox Brown, who, when summoned, brought with him the surgeon, John Marshall (1818–1891) [q. v.], who saved Rossetti’s life. He was still in the deepest prostration of spirits, and suffered from a partial paralysis, which gradually wore off. He sought change and repose, first in Scotland, afterwards with William Morris at Kelmscott Manor House in Oxfordshire, and on other trips and visits. The history of them all is nearly the same sad story of groundless jealousy, morbid suspicion, fitful passion, and what but for his irresponsible condition would have been inexcusable selfishness. At last he wore out the patience and charity of many of his most faithful friends. Those less severely tried, such as Madox Brown and Marshall, preserved their loyalty; Theodore Watts-Dunton, a new friend, proved himself invaluable; William Sharp, Frederick Shields, and others cheered the invalid by frequent visits; and his own family showed devoted affection. But the chloral dosing went on, forbidding all hope of real amendment.

The most astonishing fact in Rossetti’s history is the sudden rekindling of his poetical faculty in these dismal years, almost in greater force than ever. ‘Chloral,’ says his brother, ‘had little or no power over that part of his mind which was purely intellectual or inventive.’ The magnificent ballad-epic of ‘Rose Mary’ had been written in 1871, just before the clouds darkened round him. To this, in 1880, were added, partly under the friendly pressure of Mr. Watts-Dunton, ‘The White Ship’ and ‘The King’s Tragedy,’ ballads even superior in force, if less potent in imagination. The three were published towards the end of 1881, together with other new poems, chiefly sonnets, in a volume entitled ‘ Ballads and Sonnets,’ which was unanimously recognised as equal in all respects to that of 1870. Some of its beauties, indeed, were borrowed from its predecessor, a number of sonnets being transferred to its pages to complete the century entitled ‘The House of Life,’ the gap thus occasioned in the former volume being made good by the publication of the ‘Bride’s Prelude,’ an early poem of considerable length. About the same time Rossetti, who had been a contributor to the first edition of Gilchrist’s ‘Life of Blake’ in 1863, interested himself warmly in the second edition of 1880. His letters of this period to Mr. Hall Caine, Mr. William Sharp, and others show excellent critical judgment and undiminished enthusiasm for literature. He also, very shortly before his death, completed the still unpublished ‘Jan van Hunks,’ a metrical tale of a smoking Dutchman (originally composed at a very early date). His painting, having never been intermitted, could not experience the same marvellous revival as his poetry, but four single figures, ‘La Bella Mano’ (1875), ‘Venus Astarte’ (1877), and, still later, ‘The Vision of Fiammetta’ and ‘A Day Dream,’ rank high among his work of that class. His last really great picture, ‘Dante’s Dream,’ was painted in oil in 1869–71, at the beginning of the hapless chloral period; he had treated the same subject in watercolour in 1855.

Mr. Hall Caine was an inmate of Rossetti’s house from July 1881 to his death, and did much to soothe the inevitable misery of the entire break-up of his once powerful constitution. One last consolation was the abandonment of chloral in December 1881, under the close supervision of his medical attendant, Mr. Henry Maudsley. He died at Birchington, near Margate, 9 April 1882, attended by his nearest relatives, Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. Caine, and Mr. F. Shields. He was interred at Birchington under a tomb designed by Madox Brown, bearing an epitaph written by his brother.

Rossetti is a unique instance of an Englishman who has obtained equal celebrity as a poet and as a painter. It has been disputed in which class he stands higher; but as his mastery of the poetic art was consummate, while he failed to perfectly acquire even the grammar of painting, there should seem no reasonable doubt that his higher rank is as a poet. His inability to grapple with the technicalities of painting was especially unfortunate, inasmuch as it encouraged him to evade them by confining himself to single figures, whose charm was mainly sensuous, while his power, apart from the magic of his colour, resided principally in his representation of spiritual emotion. The more spiritual he was the higher he rose, and highest of all in his Dante pictures, where every accessary and detail aids in producing the impression of almost supernatural pathos and purity. More earthly emotion is at the same time expressed with extraordinary force in his ‘Cassandra’ and other productions; and even when he is little else than the colourist, his colour is poetry. The same versatility is conspicuous in his poems, the searing passion of ‘Sister Helen’ or the breathless agitation of the ‘King’s Tragedy’ being not more masterly in their way than the intricate cadences and lingering dalliance with thought of ‘The Portrait’ and ‘The Stream’s Secret,’ the stately magnificence of the best sonnets, and the intensity of some of the minor lyrics. Everywhere he is daringly original, intensely passionate, and ‘of imagination all compact.’ His music is as perfect as the music can be that always produces the effect of studied artifice, never of spontaneous impulse; his glowing and sumptuous diction is his own, borrowed from none, and incapable of successful imitation. Than him young poets can find few better inspirers, and few worse models. His total indifference to the political and religious struggles of his age, if it limited his influence, had at all events the good effect of eliminating all unpoetical elements from his verse. He is a poet or nothing, and everywhere a poet almost faultless from his own point of view, wanting no charm but the highest of all, and the first on Milton’s list — simplicity. Notwithstanding this defect, he must be placed very high on the roll of English poets.

Rossetti the man was, before all things, an artist. Many departments of human activity had no existence for him. He was superstitious in grain and anti-scientific to the marrow. His reasoning powers were hardly beyond the average; but his instincts were potent, and his perceptions keen and true. Carried away by his impulses, he frequently acted with rudeness, inconsiderateness, and selfishness. But if a thing could be presented to him from an artistic point of view, he apprehended it in the same spirit as he would have apprehended a subject for a painting or a poem. Hence, if in some respects his actions and expressions seem deficient in right feeling, he appears in other respects the most self-denying and disinterested of men. He was unsurpassed in the filial and fraternal relations; he was absolutely superior to jealousy or envy, and none felt a keener delight in noticing and aiding a youthful writer of merit. His acquaintance with literature was almost entirely confined to works of imagination. Within these limits his critical faculty was admirable, not deeply penetrative, but always embodying the soundest common-sense. His few critical essays are excellent. His memory was almost preternatural, and his knowledge of favourite writers, such as Shakespeare, Dante, Scott, Dumas, exhaustive. It is lamentable that his soundness of judgment should have deserted him in his own case, and that he should have been unable to share the man of genius’s serene confidence that not all the powers of dulness and malignity combined can, in the long run, deprive him of a particle of his real due. He altered sonnets in ‘The House of Life’ in deference to what he knew to be unjust and even absurd strictures, and the alterations remain in the English editions, though the original readings have been restored in the beautiful Boston reprint of Messrs. Copeland & Day. His distaste for travel and indifference to natural beauty were surprising characteristics, the latter especially so in consideration of the gifts of observation and description so frequently evinced in his poetry.

All the extant pictorial likenesses of Rossetti, mostly by himself, have been published by his brother in various places. One of these of himself, aged 18, is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. No portrait so accurately represents him as the photograph by W. and E. Downey, prefixed to Mr. Hall Caine’s ‘Recollections.’ A posthumous bust was sculptured by Madox Brown for a memorial fountain placed opposite Rossetti’s house in Cheyne Walk. Another portrait was painted by G. F. Watts, R.A. A drawing by Rossetti of his wife belongs to Mr. Barclay Squire. Exhibitions of his pictures have been held by the Royal Academy and by the Arts Club. His poetical works have been published more than once in a complete form since his death.

The National Gallery acquired in 1886 his oil-painting ‘Ecce Ancilla Domini’ (1850), in which his sister Christina sat for the Virgin. His ‘Dante’s Dream’ (1869–71) is in the Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool. But with very few exceptions his finest works are in private hands.

[It was long expected that an authentic biography of Rossetti would be given to the world by Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, who contributed obituary notices of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti to the Athenæum. The apparent disappointment of this anticipation led Mr. W. M. Rossetti to publish, in 1895, the Memoir (accompanying the Letters) of his brother. The letters are entirely family letters, and exhibit Rossetti to much less advantage as a correspondent than do the letters addressed on literary and artistic subjects to private friends. Mr. Rossetti had previously (1889) published ‘Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer.’ The record of Rosetti’s squabbles with picture-dealers and other customers is not always edifying, but the chronological list of his works is indispensable. Mr. Rossetti subsequently issued in 1899 ‘Ruskin, Rossetti and Preraphaelitism’ [papers 1854–62], in 1900 ‘Præraphaelite Diaries and Letters’ [early correspondence 1835–54]; and in 1903 ‘Rossetti papers, 1862–70.’ Mr. Joseph Knight has contributed an excellent miniature biography to the Great Writers series (1887), and Mr. F. G. Stephens, an old pre-Raphaelite comrade, has written a comprehensive and copiously illustrated account of his artistic work as a monograph in the Portfolio (1894). The reminiscences of Mr. William Sharp and Mr. Hall Caine refer exclusively to his latter years; but the first-named gentleman’s Record and Study (1882) may be regarded as an excellent critical handbook to his literary work, especially the sonnets; and the latter’s Recollections (1882) include a number of interesting letters. The best, however, of all Rossetti’s letters, so far as hitherto published, are those to William Allingham, edited by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill and published in London in 1897. The autobiographies of Dr. Gordon Hake and Mr. William Bell Scott contain much important information, though the latter must be checked by constant reference to Mr. W. M. Rossetti’s biography. Much light is thrown on Rossetti’s pre-Raphælite period by Mr. Holman Hunt’s Pre-Raphaelitism and the P.R. Brotherhood, 1905. Esther Wood’s Dante Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement (1891) deserves attention, but is of much less authority. See also Sarrazin’s Essay in his Poètes Modernes de l’Angleterre (1885), Mr. Watts-Dunton’s article in Nineteenth Century (‘The Truth about Rossetti’), March 1883, and communication to the Athenæum, 23 May 1896; Robert Buchanan’s Fleshly School of Poetry (1872), with the replies by Rossetti and Swinburne; Coventry Patmore’s Principle in Art; Mr. Hall Caine in Miles’s Poets of the Century; and Hueffer’s Life of Ford Madox Brown, 1896.]

Self-portrait, aged 19

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, aged 22, by William Holman Hunt

John Ruskin (1819–1900), the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, was instrumental in launching the artistic and poetical career of the young Rossetti.

CONTENTS

EARLY POEMS

MIDDLE POEMS

LATER POEMS

THE HOUSE OF LIFE

PART I. YOUTH AND CHANGE

PART II. CHANGE AND FATE

FROM ‘EARLY ITALIAN POETS’, 1861

Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862) 2) was an artists’ model, poet and artist. Siddal featured prominently in Rossetti’s early paintings of women and they were married in 1860. Rossetti completed this portrait, titled ‘Beata Beatrix’ a year after his wife’s death.

7 Gower Street, London — the location where Rossettii and his friends established the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

The original founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood William Holman Hunt; Dante Gabriel Rossetti; John Everett Millais

EARLY POEMS

MY SISTER’S SLEEP (1850 VERSION)

She fell asleep on Christmas Eve.

Upon her eyes’ most patient calms

The lids were shut; her uplaid arms

Covered her bosom, I believe.

Our mother, who had leaned all day   5

Over the bed from chime to chime,

Then raised herself for the first time,

And as she sat her down, did pray.

Her little work-table was spread

With work to finish. For the glare   10

Made by her candle, she had care

To work some distance from the bed.

Without, there was a good moon up,

Which left its shadow far within;

The depth of light that it was in   15

Seemed hollow like an altar-cup.

Through the small room, with subtle sound

Of flame, by vents the fireshine drove

And reddened. In its dim alcove

The mirror shed a clearness round.   20

I had been sitting up some nights,

And my tir’d mind felt weak and blank;

Like a sharp strengthening wine, it drank

The stillness and the broken lights.

Silence was speaking at my side   25

With an exceedingly clear voice:

I knew the calm as of a choice

Made in God for me, to abide.

I said, "Full knowledge does not grieve:

This which upon my spirit dwells   30

Perhaps would have been sorrow else:

But I am glad ’tis Christmas Eve."

Twelve struck. That sound, which all the years

Hear in each hour, crept off; and then

The ruffled silence spread again,   35

Like water that a pebble stirs.

Our mother rose from where she sat.

Her needles, as she laid them down,

Met lightly, and her silken gown

Settled: no other noise than that.   40

Glory unto the Newly Born!

So, as said angels, she did say;

Because we were in Christmas-day,

Though it would still be long till dawn.

She stood a moment with her hands   45

Kept in each other, praying much;

A moment that the soul may touch

But the heart only understands.

Almost unwittingly, my mind

Repeated her words after her;   50

Perhaps tho’ my lips did not stir;

It was scarce thought, or cause assign’d.

Just then in the room over us

There was a pushing back of chairs,

As some who had sat unawares   55

So late, now heard the hour, and rose.

Anxious, with softly stepping haste,

Our mother went where Margaret lay,

Fearing the sounds o’erhead - should they

Have broken her long-watched for rest!   60

She stooped an instant, calm, and turned;

But suddenly turned back again;

And all her features seemed in pain

With woe, and her eyes gazed and yearned.

For my part, I but hid my face,   65

And held my breath, and spake no word:

There was none spoken; but I heard

The silence for a little space.

Our mother bowed herself and wept.

And both my arms fell, and I said:   70

God knows I knew that she was dead.

And there, all white, my sister slept.

Then kneeling, upon Christmas morn

A little after twelve o’clock

We said, ere the first quarter struck,

Christ’s blessing on the newly born!

MARY’S GIRLHOOD

I

This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect

God’s Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she

Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.

Unto God’s will she brought devout respect,

Profound simplicity of intellect,   5

And supreme patience. From her mother’s knee

Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;

Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect.

So held she through her girlhood; as it were

An angel-watered lily, that near God   10

Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home

She woke in her white bed, and had no fear

At all, - yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed:

Because the fulness of the time was come.

II

These are the symbols. On that cloth of red   15

I’ the centre is the Tripoint: perfect each,

Except the second of its points, to teach

That Christ is not yet born. The books - whose head

Is golden Charity, as Paul hath said-

Those virtues are wherein the soul is rich:   20

Therefore on them the lily standeth, which

Is Innocence, bring interpreted.

The seven-thorn’d briar and the palm seven-leaved

Are her great sorrow and her great reward.

Until the end be full, the Holy One   25

Abides without. She soon shall have achieved

Her perfect purity: yea, God the Lord

Shall soon vouchsafe His Son to be her Son.

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL (1850 VERSION)

The blessed Damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of Heaven:

Her blue grave eyes were deeper much

Than a deep water, even.

She had three lilies in her hand,   5

And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,

No wrought flowers did adorn,

But a white rose of Mary’s gift

On the neck meetly worn;   10

And her hair, lying down her back,

Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseemed she scarce had been a day

One of God’s choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone   15

From that still look of hers;

Albeit to them she left, her day

Had counted as ten years.

(To one it is ten years of years:

 Yet now, here in this place   20

Surely she leaned o’er me, - her hair

Fell all about my face

Nothing: the Autumn-fall of leaves.

The whole year sets apace.)

It was the terrace of God’s house   25

That she was standing on, -

By God built over the sheer depth

In which Space is begun;

So high, that looking downward thence,

She could scarce see the sun.   30

It lies from Heaven across the flood

Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night

With flame and blackness ridge

The void, as low as where this earth   35

Spins like a fretful midge.

But in those tracts, with her, it was

The peace of utter light

And silence. For no breeze may stir

Along the steady flight   40

Of seraphim; no echo there,

Beyond all depth or height.

Heard hardly, some of her new friends,

Playing at holy games,

Spake, gentle-mouthed, among themselves,   45

Their virginal chaste names;

And the souls, mounting up to God,

Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself, and stooped

Into the vast waste calm;   50

Till her bosom’s pressure must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,

And the lilies lay as if asleep

Along her bended arm.

From the fixt lull of heaven, she saw   55

Time, like a pulse, shake fierce

Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove,

In that steep gulph, to pierce

The swarm: and then she spake, as when

The stars sang in their spheres.   60

"I wish that he were come to me,

For he will come," she said.

"Have I not prayed in solemn heaven?

On earth, has he not prayed?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength?   65

And shall I feel afraid?

"When round his head the aureole clings,

And he is clothed in white,

I’ll take his hand, and go with him

To the deep wells of light,   70

And we will step down as to a stream

And bathe there in God’s sight.

"We two will stand beside that shrine,

Occult, withheld, untrod,

Whose lamps tremble continually   75

With prayer sent up to God;

And where each need, revealed, expects

Its patient period.

"We two will lie i’ the shadow of

That living mystic tree   80

Within whose secret growth the Dove

Sometimes is felt to be,

While every leaf that His plumes touch

Saith His name audibly.

"And I myself will teach to him — 85

I myself, lying so, -

The songs I sing here; which his mouth

Shall pause in, hushed and slow,

Finding some knowledge at each pause

And some new thing to know."   90

(Alas! to her wise simple mind

These things were all but known

Before: they trembled on her sense, -

Her voice had caught their tone.

Alas for lonely Heaven! Alas   95

For life wrung out alone!

Alas, and though the end were reached?

Was thy part understood

Or borne in trust? And for her sake

Shall this too be found good? -   100

May the close lips that knew not prayer

Praise ever, though they would?)

We two, she said, "will seek the groves

Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names   105

Are five sweet symphonies: -

Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,

Margaret, and Rosalys.

"Circle-wise sit they, with bound locks

And bosoms covered;   110

Into the fine cloth, white like flame,

Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them

Who are just born, being dead.

"He shall fear haply, and be dumb.   115

Then I will lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak:

And the dear Mother will approve

My pride, and let me speak.   120

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,

To Him round whom all souls

Kneel - the unnumber’d solemn heads

Bowed with their aureoles:

And Angels, meeting us, shall sing   125

To their citherns and citoles.

"There will I ask of Christ the Lord

Thus much for him and me: -

To have more blessing than on earth

In nowise; but to be   130

As then we were, — being as then

At peace. Yea, verily.

"Yea, verily; when he is come

We will do thus and thus:

Till this my vigil seem quite strange   135

And almost fabulous;

We two will live at once, one life;

And peace shall be with us."

She gazed, and listened, and then said,

Less sad of speech than mild:   140

All this is when he comes. She ceased;

The light thrilled past her, filled

With Angels, in strong level lapse.

Her eyes prayed, and she smiled.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their flight   145

Was vague ‘mid the poised spheres.

And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,

And wept. (I heard her tears.)   150

THE CARILLON

ANTWERP AND BRUGES

(In these and others of the Flemish towns, the Carillon, or chimes which have a most fantastic and delicate music, are played almost continuously. The custom is very ancient.)

At Antwerp, there is a low wall

Binding the city, and a moat

Beneath, that the wind keeps afloat.

You pass the gates in a slow drawl

Of wheels. If it is warm at all   5

The Carillon will give you thought.

I climbed the stair in Antwerp church,

What time the urgent weight of sound

At sunset seems to heave it round.

Far up, the Carillon did search   10

The wind; and the birds came to perch

Far under, where the gables wound.

In Antwerp harbour on the Scheldt

I stood along, a certain space

Of night. The mist was near my face:   15

Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.

The Carillon kept pause, and dwelt

In music through the silent place.

At Bruges, when you leave the train,

- A singing numbness in your ears, -   20

The Carillon’s first sound appears

Only the inner moil. Again

A little minute though - your brain

Takes quiet, and the whole sense hears.

John Memmeling and John Van Eyck   25

Hold state at Bruges. In sore shame

I scanned the works that keep their name.

The Carillon, which then did strike

Mine ears, was heard of theirs alike:

It set me closer unto them.   30

I climbed at Bruges all the flight

The Belfry has of ancient stone.

For leagues I saw the east wind blown:

The earth was grey, the sky was white.

I stood so near upon the height

That my flesh felt the Carillon.

October, 1849

FROM THE CLIFFS: NOON (1850 VERSION)

The sea is in its listless chime:

Time’s lapse it is, made audible, -

The murmur of the earth’s large shell.

In a sad blueness beyond rhyme

It ends: sense, without thought, can pass   5

No stadium further. Since time was,

This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No stagnance that death wins, - it hath

The mournfulness of ancient life,

Always enduring at dull strife.   10

As the world’s heart of rest and wrath,

Its painful pulse is in the sands.

Last utterly, the whole sky stands,

Grey and not known, along its path.

PAX VOBIS (1850 VERSION)

’Tis of the Father Hilary.

He strove, but could not pray; so took

The darkened stair, where his feet shook

A sad blind echo. He kept up

Slowly. ’Twas a chill sway of air   5

That autumn noon within the stair,

Sick, dizzy, like a turning cup.

His brain perplexed him, void and thin:

He shut his eyes and felt it spin;

The obscure deafness hemmed him in.   10

He said: ‘The air is calm outside.’

He leaned unto the gallery

Where the chime keeps the night and day:

It hurt his brain, - he could not pray.

He had his face upon the stone:   15

Deep ‘twixt the narrow shafts, his eye

Passed all the roofs unto the sky

Whose greyness the wind swept alone.

Close by his feet he saw it shake

With wind in pools that the rains make:

The ripple set his eyes to ache.

He said: ‘Calm hath its peace outside.’

He stood within the mystery

Girding God’s blessed Eucharist:

The organ and the chaunt had ceased:

A few words paused against his ear,

Said from the altar: drawn round him,

The silence was at rest and dim.

He could not pray. The bell shook clear

And ceased. All was great awe, - the breath

Of God in man, that warranteth

Wholly the inner things of Faith.

He said: ‘There is the world outside.’

WORLD’S WORTH

’Tis of the Father Hilary.

He strove, but could not pray; so took

The steep-coiled stair, where his feet shook

A sad blind echo. Ever up

He toiled. ’Twas a sick sway of air   5

That autumn noon within the stair,

As dizzy as a turning cup.

His brain benumbed him, void and thin;

He shut his eyes and felt it spin;

The obscure deafness hemmed him in.   10

He said: ‘O world, what world for me?’

He leaned unto the balcony

Where the chime keeps the night and day;

It hurt his brain, he could not pray.

He had his face upon the stone:   15

Deep ‘twixt the narrow shafts, his eye

Passed all the roofs to the stark sky,

Swept with no wing, with wind alone.

Close to his feet the sky did shake

With wind in pools that the rains make:   20

The ripple set his eyes to ache.

He said: ‘O world, what world for me?’

He stood within the mystery

Girding God’s blessed Eucharist:

The organ and the chaunt had ceas’d:   25

The last words paused against his ear

Said from the altar: drawn round him,

The gathering rest was dumb and dim.

And now the sacring-bell rang clear

And ceased; and all was awe, - the breath   30

Of God in man that warranteth

The inmost utmost things of faith.

He said: ‘O God, my world in Thee!’

AN ALLEGORICAL DANCE OF WOMEN, BY ANDREA MANTEGNA IN THE LOUVRE

Scarcely, I think; yet it indeed may be

The meaning reached him, when this music rang

Clear through his frame, a sweet possessive pang,

And he beheld these rocks and that ridged sea.

But I believe that, leaning tow’rds them, he   5

Just felt their hair carried across his face

As each girl passed him; nor gave ear to trace

How many feet; nor bent assuredly

His eyes from the blind fixedness of thought

To know the dancers. It is bitter glad   10

Even unto tears. Its meaning filleth it,

A secret of the wells of Life: to wit: —

The heart’s each pulse shall keep the sense it had

With all, though the mind’s labour run to nought.

AN ALLEGORICAL DANCE OF WOMEN, BY ANDREA MANTEGNA

A VIRGIN AND CHILD, BY HANS MEMMELING IN THE ACADEMY OF BRUGES

Mystery: God, Man’s Life, born into man

Of woman. There abideth on her brow

The ended pang of knowledge, the which now

Is calm assured. Since first her task began,

She hath known all. What more of anguish than

Endurance oft hath lived through, the whole space

Through night till night, passed weak upon her face

While like a heavy flood the darkness ran?

All hath been told her touching her dear Son,

And all shall be accomplished. Where he sits

Even now, a babe, he holds the symbol fruit

Perfect and chosen. Until God permits,

His soul’s elect still have the absolute

Harsh nether darkness, and make painful moan.

A MARRIAGE OF ST KATHARINE, BY THE SAME IN THE HOSPITAL OF ST JOHN AT BRUGES

Mystery: Katharine, the bride of Christ.

She kneels, and on her hand the holy Child

Setteth the ring. Her life is sad and mild,

Laid in God’s knowledge - ever unenticed

From Him, and in the end thus fitly priced.

Awe, and the music that is near her, wrought

Of Angels, hath possessed her eyes in thought:

Her utter joy is her’s, and hath sufficed.

There is a pause while Mary Virgin turns

The leaf, and reads. With eyes on the spread book,

That damsel at her knees reads after her.

John whom He loved and John His harbinger

Listen and watch. Whereon soe’er thou look,

The light is starred in gems, and the gold burns.

A VENETIAN PASTORAL, BY GIORGIONE IN THE LOUVRE (1850 VERSION)

(In this picture, two cavaliers and an undraped woman are seated in the grass, with musical instruments, while another woman dips a vase into a well hard by, for water.)

Water, for anguish of the solstice, - yea,

Over the vessel’s mouth still widening

Listlessly dipt to let the water in

With slow vague gurgle. Blue, and deep away,

The heat lies silent at the brink of day.   5

Now the hand trails upon the viol-string

That sobs; and the brown faces cease to sing,

Mournful with complete pleasure. Her eyes stray

In distance; through her lips the pipe doth creep

And leaves them pouting; the green shadowed grass   10

Is cool against her naked flesh. Let be:

Do not now speak unto her lest she weep, -

Nor name this ever. Be it as it was -

Silence of heat, and solemn poetry.

‘Pastoral Concert’ by Giorgione, 1508

RUGGIERO AND ANGELICA, BY INGRES

I

A remote sky, prolonged to the sea’s brim:

One rock-point standing buffeted alone,

Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,

Hell-birth of geomaunt and teraphim:

A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,

Reared at the rock: a woman fettered there,

Leaning into the hollow with loose hair

And throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.

The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt:

Under his lord the griffin-horse ramps blind

With rigid wings and tail. The spear’s lithe stem

Thrills in the roaring of those jaws: behind,

That evil length of body chafes at fault.

She doth not hear nor see - she knows of them.

II

Clench thine eyes now, - ’tis the last instant, girl:

Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and take

One breath for all: thy life is keen awake, -

Thou mayst not swoon. Was that the scattered whirl

Of its foam drenched thee? - or the waves that curl

And split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?

Or was it his the champion’s blood to flake

Thy flesh? - or thine own blood’s anointing, girl?

Now, silence: for the sea’s is such a sound

As irks not silence; and except the sea,

All now is still. Now the dead thing doth cease

To writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and she,

Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,

Again a woman in her nakedness.

RUGGIERO AND ANGELICA, BY INGRES

THE CARD-DEALER

Could you not drink her gaze like wine?

Yet though its splendour swoon

Into the silence languidly

As a tune into a tune,

Those eyes unravel the coiled night   5

And know the stars at noon.

The gold that’s heaped beside her hand,

In truth rich prize it were;

And rich the dreams that wreathe her brows

With magic stillness there;   10

And he were rich who should unwind

That woven golden hair.

Around her, where she sits, the dance

Now breathes its eager heat;

And not more lightly or more true   15

Fall there the dancers’ feet

Than fall her cards on the bright board

As ‘twere an heart that beat.

Her fingers let them softly through,

Smooth polished silent things;   20

And each one as it falls reflects

In swift light-shadowings,

Blood-red and purple, green and blue

The great eyes of her rings.

Whom plays she with? With thee, who lov’st   25

Those gems upon her hand;

With me, who search her secret brows;

With all men, bless’d or bann’d.

We play together, she and we,

Within a vain strange land:   30

A land without any order, -

Day even as night, (one saith,)-

Where who lieth down ariseth not

Nor the sleeper awakeneth;

A land of darkness as darkness itself   35

And of the shadow of death.

What be her cards, you ask? Even these:-

The heart, that doth but crave

More, having fed; the diamond,

Skilled to make base seem brave;   40

The club, for smiting in the dark;

The spade, to dig a grave.

And do you ask what game she plays?

With me ’tis lost or won;

With thee it is playing still; with him  45

It is not well begun;

But ’tis a game she plays with all

Beneath the sway o’ the sun.

Thou seest the card that falls, - she knows

The card that followeth:  50

Her game in thy tongue is called Life,

As ebbs thy daily breath:

When she shall speak, thou’lt learn her tongue

And know she calls it Death.

SISTER HELEN

"Why did you melt your waxen man,

                              Sister Helen?

To-day is the third since you began."

"The time was long, yet the time ran,

                              Little brother."  5

                         (O Mother, Mary Mother,

Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!)

"But if you have done your work aright,

                              Sister Helen,

You’ll let me play, for you said I might." 10

"Be very still in your play to-night,

                              Little brother."

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

Third night, tonight, between Hell and Heaven!)

"You said it must melt ere vesper-bell,  15

                              Sister Helen;

If now it be molten, all is well."

"Even so, - nay, peace! you cannot tell,

                              Little brother."

                        (O Mother, Mary Mother,   20

O what is this, between Hell and Heaven?)

"Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day,

Sister Helen;

How like dead folk he has dropped away!"

"Nay now, of the dead what can you say,   25

                              Little brother?"

                          (O Mother, Mary Mother,

What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?)

"See, see, the sunken pile of wood,

                              Sister Helen,   30

Shines through the thinned wax red as blood!"

"Nay now, when looked you yet on blood,

                              Little brother?"

                          (O Mother, Mary Mother,

How pale she is, between Hell and Heaven!)   35

"Now close your eyes, for they’re sick and sore,

                              Sister Helen,

And I’ll play without the gallery door."

"Aye, let me rest, - I’ll lie on the floor,

                              Little brother."   40

                            (O Mother, Mary Mother,

What rest to-night between Hell and Heaven?)

"Here high up in the balcony,

                              Sister Helen;

The moon flies face to face with me."   45

"Aye, look and say whatever you see,

                              Little brother."

                           (O Mother, Mary Mother,

What sight to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

"Outside it’s merry in the wind’s wake,   50

                              Sister Helen,

In the shaken trees the chill stars shake."

"Hush, heard you a horse-tread as you spake,

                              Little brother?"

                           (O Mother, Mary Mother,   55

What sound to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)

"I hear a horse-tread, and I see,

                              Sister Helen,

Three horsemen that ride terribly."

"Little brother, whence come the three,

                              Little brother?"

                          (O Mother, Mary Mother,

Whence should they come, between Hell and Heaven?)

"They come by the hill-verge from Boyne Bar,

                              Sister Helen,

And one draws nigh, but two are afar."

"Look, look, do you know them who they are,

                              Little brother?"

                           (O Mother, Mary Mother,

Who should they be, between Hell and Heaven?)

"Oh, it’s Keith of Eastholm rides so fast,

Sister Helen,

For I know the white mane on the blast."

"The hour has come, has come at last,

                              Little brother!"

                           (O Mother, Mary Mother,

Her hour at last, between Hell and Heaven!)

"He has made a sign and called Halloo!

Sister Helen,

And he says that he would speak with you."

"Oh tell him I fear the frozen dew,

                              Little brother."

                           (O Mother, Mary Mother,

Why laughs she thus, between Hell and Heaven?)

"The wind is loud, but I hear him cry,

Sister Helen,

That Keith of Ewern’s like to die."

"And he and thou, and thou and I,

                              Little brother."

                           (O Mother, Mary Mother,

And they and we, between Hell and Heaven!)

"Three days ago, on his marriage-morn,

                              Sister Helen,

He sickened, and lies since then forlorn."

"For bridegroom’s side is the bride a thorn,

                              Little brother?"

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

Cold bridal cheer, between Hell and Heaven!)

"Three days and nights he has lain abed,

                              Sister Helen,   100

And he prays in torment to be dead."

"The thing may chance, if he have prayed,

                              Little brother!"

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

If he have prayed, between Hell and Heaven!)   105

"But he has not ceased to cry to-day,

Sister Helen,

That you should take your curse away."

"My prayer was heard, - he need but pray,

                              Little brother!"   110

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

Shall God not hear, between Hell and Heaven?)

"But he says, till you take back your ban,

Sister Helen,

His soul would pass, yet never can."   115

"Nay then, shall I slay a living man,

                              Little brother?"

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

A living soul, between Hell and Heaven!)

"But he calls for ever on your name,   120

Sister Helen,

And says that he melts before a flame."

"My heart for his pleasure fared the same,

                              Little brother."

(O Mother, Mary Mother,   125

Fire at the heart, between Hell and Heaven!)

"Here’s Keith of Westholm riding fast,

Sister Helen,

For I know the white plume on the blast."

"The hour, the sweet hour I forecast,   130

                              Little brother!"

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

Is the hour sweet, between Hell and Heaven?)

"He stops to speak, and he stills his horse,

                              Sister Helen;   135

But his words are drowned in the wind’s course."

"Nay hear, nay hear, you must hear perforce,

                              Little brother!"

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

What word now heard, between Hell and Heaven?)   140

"Oh he says that Keith of Ewern’s cry,

Sister Helen,

Is ever to see you ere he die.’

"In all that his soul sees, there am I,

                              Little brother!"   145

(O Mother, Mary Mother,

The soul’s one sight, between Hell and Heaven!)

"He sends a ring and a broken coin,