by Dinah Roe
The New Religion
They shall not be forgotten, these my lays;
I know that they shall live when I am dead.
A thousand things I might have sung and said,
And no man hearkened to my blame or praise;
5 I might have moved the veil from off the face
Of awful Destiny; I might have spread
Rebellion through a land misused, and made
My song the weapon of an injured race,
And men forgotten all the same; but now
10 I come among ye, and to each I cry,
‘He that hath ears to hearken, let him hear,’
I sing of love, made manifest in her.
I preach the Gospel of her life, and so
I feel these words, though mine, not born to die!
OLIVER MADOX BROWN
Sonnet
Written at the Age of Thirteen for a Picture by Mrs Stillman
Leaning against the window, rapt in thought,
Of what sweet past do thy soft brown eyes dream
That so expressionlessly sweet they seem?
Or what great image hath thy fancy wrought
5 To wonder round and gaze at? or doth aught
Of legend move thee, o’er which eyes oft stream,
Telling of some sweet saint who rose supreme
From martyrdom to God, with glory fraught?
Or art thou listening to the gondolier,
10 Whose song is dying o’er the waters wide,
Trying the faintly-sounding tune to hear
Before it mixes with the rippling tide?
Or dost thou think of one that comes not near,
And whose false heart, in thine, thine own doth chide?
Song
Lady, we are growing tired!
Lo! our faltering breath,
Once with new-born love inspired,
Holds the love we once desired, as weary unto death.
5 Lady, Love is very fleet,
All too fleet for sorrow:
But if we part in time, my sweet,
We’ll overtake Love’s flying feet, –
If we part to-day, my love, we’ll find new love to-morrow.
Abbreviations
Frequently Mentioned Names
ACS Algernon Charles Swinburne
DGR Dante Gabriel Rossetti
CGR Christina Georgina Rossetti
EBJ Edward Burne-Jones
FMB Ford Madox Brown
JEM John Everett Millais
OMB Oliver Madox Brown
PRB Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
RA Royal Academy
WBS William Bell Scott
WHD Walter Howell Deverell
WHH William Holman Hunt
WM William Morris
WMR William Michael Rossetti
Frequently Mentioned Works
DGR, Works The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ed. with a preface and notes by WMR (Ellis and Elvey, 1911)
FLM Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family Letters with a Memoir, ed. WMR, 2 vols. (Ellis and Elvey, 1895)
FS ‘The Fleshly School of Poetry: Mr D. G. Rossetti’ by Robert Buchanan (as Thomas Maitland), Contemporary Review 18 (October 1871), pp. 334–50
Malory Le Morte d’Arthur (William Caxton, 1485) by Sir Thomas Malory (a useful modern edition is Caxton’s Malory: A New Edition of Sir Thomas Malory’s ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, ed. James W. Spisak, University of California Press, 1983)
PP The Painter-Poets, ed. Kineton Parkes (Walter Scott, 1890)
RRP Ruskin: Rossetti: Preraphaelitism: Papers 1854–1862, ed. WMR (George Allen, 1899)
SR Some Reminiscences of William Michael Rossetti, 2 vols. (Brown, Langham & Co., 1906)
Biographical Notes
These notes follow the sequence of the poems as they occur in the book. All members of the PRB are included here, even those who did not write poetry, namely Frederic George Stephens, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Edward Burne-Jones is also included, as he was a formative influence in Pre-Raphaelitism’s second wave, and PRB associate Simeon Solomon. Biographical information has been taken from the Dictionary of National Biography as well as more specialized works such as William E. Fredeman’s Pre-Raphaelitism: A Bibliocritical Study (Harvard University Press, 1965) and Lionel Stevenson’s The Pre-Raphaelite Poets (University of North Carolina Press, 1972).
A selected list of publications is given for each author, which includes works from which the poems have been taken, in some cases selected volumes from multi-volume works. The focus is necessarily on poetic works, as a complete list of novels, stories and essays could fill a volume in itself. A list of significant paintings and illustrations follows separately.
The exhaustive research of William E. Fredeman in Pre-Raphaelitism: A Bibliocritical Study (Harvard University Press, 1965) has been of particular help, along with Derek Stanford’s Pre-Raphaelite Writing (Dent, 1973) and Inga Bryden’s The Pre-Raphaelites: Writings and Sources, 4 vols. (Routledge, 1998). I strongly recommend their work to readers interested in Pre-Raphaelitism.
William Bell Scott (1811–90)
Poet and painter; born in Edinburgh; studied fine art at Trustees’ Academy, Edinburgh; moved to London, 1837; married Letitia Margery Norquoy, 1839; exhibited at the RA, 1842; met the Rossettis in 1847; contributed to the Germ, 1850; taught at the Government School of Design in Newcastle, 1843–64; between 1855 and 1861, painted the Northumbrian History Cycle murals at Wallington, home of Pauline Trevelyan; close friend of ACS, who dedicated Poems and Ballads III (1889) to him; Autobiographical Notes (published 1892), in which his critical remarks about Rossetti and the PRB were viewed as a betrayal by the Pre-Raphaelites and associates.
Works: Poems by a Painter (1854); Poems: Ballads, Studies from Nature, Sonnets, Etc. (1875); A Poet’s Harvest Home, dedicated to WMR (1882); Autobiographical Notes (1892).
John Ruskin (1819–1900)
Art critic and collector, social critic; born in London to a wealthy family; educated at Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry, 1839; patron and mentor to the PRB, DGR in particular; also supported Elizabeth Siddal; married Euphemia (‘Effie’) Chalmers Gray, 1848; poems privately printed by his father, 1850; defended the PRB painters in letters to The Times, 1851 and 1854; portrait painted by JEM, 1854; marriage annulled on ground of non-consummation, 1854, after which Effie married JEM, 1855; member of the Hogarth Club; became a patron of EBJ in 1859, and godfather to his son, 1861; elected first Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, 1869.
Works: Modern Painters (1843–60); Pre-Raphaelitism, a pamphlet (1851); The Stones of Venice (1851–3); Sesame and Lilies (1864–5); Poems (1882); The Poems of John Ruskin, vol. 2 (1891); The Works of John Ruskin, vol. 2 (1903).
Ford Madox Brown (1821–93)
Painter, designer; born in Calais; married Elisabeth Bromley, 1841; she died in 1846; took a studio in London, 1844; tutored DGR in painting; declined formal PRB membership because he ‘had no faith in coteries’ (FLM 1, 130), but remained its closest associate; best known as the painter of Work (1852–65) and The Last of England (1855); married Emma Hill, 1853; organized a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition, 1857; designed furniture and stained glass as a partner of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., 1861–74; father of OMB, grandfather of novelist Ford Madox Ford; daughter Lucy, also a painter, married WMR, 1874; poems appeared in the Germ 1 (January 1850), and in the 1865 exhibition catalogues accompanying his paintings.
Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore (1823–96)
Poet and literary essayist; born in Essex; worked in the Printed Books Department at the British Museum, 1846; married Emily Andrews, 1847, the inspiration for The Angel in the House series; she died in 1862; on the Cyclographic Society’s ‘List of Immortals’; contributed two poems and an article on Macbeth to the Germ, 1850; suggested to Ruskin that he come to the defence of the PRB, 1851; connections to major literary figures of the day, such as Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning, proved helpfu
l to the Pre-Raphaelites; association with them lasted throughout the 1850s; became a Roman Catholic, 1864, and married Marianne Caroline Byles, whose income allowed him to quit the British Museum in 1865; Byles died in 1880 and Patmore married Harriet Robson, 1881.
Works: Poems (1844); The Angel in the House (complete version, 1863), comprising The Betrothal (1854), The Espousals (1856), Faithful For Ever (1860) and The Victories of Love (1862); The Unknown Eros (1877).
William Allingham (1824–89)
Poet; born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal; became a bank manager and got a Customs Service job, 1846; met Coventry Patmore in 1849, through whom he was introduced to Thomas Carlyle, the Rossettis and the PRB; DGR, JEM and Arthur Hughes illustrated The Music Master (1855); befriended WM, EBJ, Alfred Tennyson and the Brownings; became editor of the influential Fraser’s Magazine, 1874; dedicated Flower Pieces (1888) to DGR.
Works: Day and Night Songs (1854); The Music Master, a Love Story, and Two Series of Day and Night Songs (1855); Songs, Ballads and Stories (1877); The Fairies (1883); Flower Pieces and Other Poems, illustrated by DGR (1888); Life and Phantasy, illustrated by JEM and Arthur Hughes (1889).
James Collinson (1825–81)
Painter, PRB member; born in Mansfield; met DGR and WHH at the RA Schools; raised in the Anglican Church, he converted to Roman Catholicism; became engaged to CGR, 1848; re-converted to Anglicanism; exhibited with PRB members at the RA, 1849; exhibited Answering the Emigrant’s Letter (1850) at the RA; contributed a poem to the Germ 2 (February 1850); reverted to Roman Catholicism, 1850, and gave up PRB membership for religious reasons; CGR subsequently broke off the engagement; entered Jesuit community at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, 1852–3; left before completing novitiate, 1854; married Eliza Wheeler, 1858.
Thomas Woolner (1825–92)
Sculptor and poet; PRB member; born in Suffolk; entered the RA Schools, 1842; met DGR and joined the Cyclographic Society, 1847; verse appeared in the Germ, 1850; prospected for gold in Australia, 1852; returned to England, 1854, to become a successful maker of busts (Alfred Tennyson, 1857 and 1874; Charles Darwin, 1870; Charles Dickens, 1872) and portrait medallions (Tennyson, 1848; Coventry Patmore, 1849; William Wordsworth, 1851; Robert Browning, 1856); married Alice Gertrude Waugh, 1864; sculpture Mother and Child installed at Wallington, 1866; made Associate of the RA, 1871, and Royal Academician, 1874.
Works: My Beautiful Lady (1863); Pygmalion (1881); Silenus (1884).
John Lucas Tupper (1826?–79)
Drawing-master, sculptor and poet; born in London; studied at the RA Schools, where he met the PRB; worked as an anatomical artist at Guy’s Hospital, 1849–69; wrote ‘The Subject in Art’, an essay in two parts, for the Germ 1 and 3 (January and March 1850) and contributed poems to the magazine; exhibited at the RA, but not with great success; became a drawing-master at Rugby, 1865; the Tupper Firm, run by his brothers George and Alexander, printed the Germ; married Annie Amelia French, 1871.
Works: Poems by the Late John Lucas Tupper, ed. WMR (1897).
William Holman Hunt (1827–1910)
Painter, PRB member; born in London; studied at the RA Schools, 1844; exhibited The Eve of St Agnes at the RA in 1848; DGR, WMR and JEM sat for Rienzi (1849), shown at the RA; A Converted British Family (1850) shown at the RA; WHH depicted both contemporary subjects (The Awakening Conscience, 1853) and biblical allegories (The Scapegoat, 1854); travelled to the Middle East, 1854–6; illustrated the Moxon edition of Tennyson’s Poems (1857); married Fanny Waugh in 1865, who died shortly after; associate member of the Old Watercolour Society, 1869; travelled to Florence, 1868–9; worked on religious subjects (including The Shadow of Death, 1870–73, and The Triumph of the Innocents, 1883–4); married late wife’s younger sister, 1875; published his memoirs, Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1905), which argued for his and JEM’s importance to the PRB and disassociated himself from Pre-Raphaelitism’s second wave.
Walter Howell Deverell (1827–54)
Painter; born to an English family in Virginia, USA; studied at Sass’s Academy with DGR; exhibited at the RA, 1847–53; nominated for PRB membership when James Collinson resigned, 1850, but not selected; poems appeared in the Germ, 1850; shared a studio with DGR in 1851; died of a kidney disease.
Frederic George Stephens (1827–1907)
Art critic, art historian and PRB member; born in London; studied as a painter at the RA; began working as an artist, then abandoned painting in the 1850s; wrote seminal essay for the Germ 2 (February 1850), ‘The Purpose and Tendency of Early Italian Art’; art critic at the Athenaeum for forty years; promoted PRB painters, but became increasingly critical of them from the 1880s onwards; wrote hundreds of articles, produced monographs and catalogues on artists such as Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Joshua Reynolds, Edwin Landseer and William Mulready.
George Meredith (1828–1909)
Novelist and poet; born in Portsmouth; married writer Mary Ellen Nicholls, daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, 1849; Mary left Meredith, 1857, to join her lover, the painter Henry Wells; shared lodgings with DGR and ACS, 1862–3; Mary died, 1862; first marriage is said to have inspired the Modern Love sonnets and the novel The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859); Modern Love attacked by many, but defended by ACS; became a reader at the publisher Chapman and Hall; married Marie Vulliamy, 1864; Tracey Runningbrook in Emilia in England (1864) is based on ACS; success of Beauchamp’s Career (1876) established him as a novelist; President of Society of Authors, 1892; received the Order of Merit, 1905.
Works: Poems (1851); Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside, with poems and ballads (1862); Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth (1883); Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life (1887); A Reading of Life (1901).
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82)
Painter, poet and translator; PRB member; born in London to Gabriele Rossetti, an exiled Italian poet, and Frances Polidori; elder brother of WMR and CGR; maternal uncle John Polidori was Byron’s physician; studied at the RA Schools, where he met WHH and JEM; contributed poems to the Germ, 1850, and the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856, among other journals, but did not publish his own volume of poetry until 1870; met EBJ and WM in 1856; worked on Oxford Union murals, 1857; illustrated Moxon edition of Tennyson’s Poems (1857); member of Hogarth Club, 1858; married model Elizabeth Siddal, 1860, who died of a possibly intentional laudanum overdose, 1862; published The Early Italian Poets and became founder member of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., 1861; ACS and George Meredith were tenants at his Cheyne Walk home, 1862–3; helped prepare Alexander Gilchrist’s 1863 biography of William Blake; during 1860s and 1870s, produced commercially successful paintings of beautiful women such as Venus Verticordia (1864–8) and Astarte Syriaca (1877); poems criticized by Robert Buchanan in ‘The Fleshly School of Poetry’ (1871); replied with ‘The Stealthy School of Criticism’ (1872); became addicted to chloral and alcohol, dying of organ failure.
Works: Poems, including first part of The House of Life sonnet sequence (1870); Ballads and Sonnets, including completed House of Life (1881); Poems: A New Edition (1881); The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ed. WMR (1911).
John Everett Millais (1829–96)
Painter; PRB member; born in Southampton; met WHH at the RA Schools; PRB inaugurated at his Gower Street house, 1848; PRB painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1850) was the subject of fierce criticism; Elizabeth Siddal modelled for Ophelia (1852); found success with A Huguenot (1852) and The Rescue (1855); elected Associate of the RA, 1853; painted John Ruskin’s portrait, 1854; married Ruskin’s ex-wife, Effie, 1855; atmospheric paintings such as Autumn Leaves (1856) and The Vale of Rest (1858–9) presaged the rise of Aestheticism; illustrated Moxon edition of Tennyson’s Poems (1857), Anthony Trollope’s serialized novels and The Parables of Our Lord (1864); after the 1860s, became known for portraiture and paintings of children; most successful PRB painter; became a baronet, 1885; elected RA President, 1896.
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal (1829–62)
> Artist’s model, poet and artist; born in London; worked as a dressmaker and milliner, reputedly ‘discovered’ by Walter Deverell, 1850; best known as the model for JEM’s Ophelia (1852); sat for many DGR works, among them A Christmas Carol (1857–8) and Beata Beatrix (1860); inspired CGR’s sonnet ‘In an Artist’s Studio’; John Ruskin offered an annuity for her drawings and watercolours, some of which appeared in the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition of 1857; married DGR, 1860; gave birth to a stillborn baby, 1861, and died of a laudanum overdose, 1862; DGR buried his poetic works in her coffin, but had her body exhumed in 1869 to retrieve them for publication in Poems (1870); own poems not published in her lifetime but appeared posthumously in RRP and SR.
William Michael Rossetti (1829–1910)
Art and literary critic, editor, secretary to the PRB and unofficial archivist of Pre-Raphaelite and Rossetti family activities; born in London; for family, see entry on DGR; contributed poems to the Germ, 1850; the most politically radical of the Rossetti siblings, he supported revolutions in Europe and female suffrage; wrote political sonnets which he withheld until his retirement; worked as a civil servant at the Inland Revenue, 1845–94; art critic for the Critic, Spectator and Crayon, among others; wrote the long poem ‘Mrs Holmes Gray’, 1849 (not published until 1868); married FMB’s daughter Lucy, 1874; edited and introduced many volumes for the Moxon Popular Poets series; produced editions of Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake and Walt Whitman (among the first English critics to champion Whitman); wrote a biography of John Keats, 1887; published multiple works on DGR, CGR and the Pre-Raphaelites, including Ruskin: Rossetti: Preraphaelitism: Papers 1854–1862 (1899), Rossetti Papers, 1862–1870 (1903) and Some Reminiscences of William Michael Rossetti (1906).
Works: ‘Mrs Holmes Gray’, Broadway Annual (1868); Democratic Sonnets (1907).