by Dinah Roe
LXXVIII
Body’s Beauty
Composed 1864–5. Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition (1868) by ACS. First poetry volume Poems (1870). Inscribed on the frame of DGR’s painting Lady Lilith (1866–8; altered 1872–3), now in the Delaware Art Museum. See Sonnet VII of George Meredith’s Modern Love.
1. Lilith the first wife of Adam before Eve’s creation.
9. rose emblem of love and beauty; poppy symbol of evanescent pleasure, also of sleep; here the opium poppy.
14. And round his heart one strangling golden hair from Goethe’s Faust. WMR’s note on the poem (DGR, Works, 656) provides Percy Bysshe Shelley’s translation of Scene II from Scenes from the Faust of Goethe (1824):
Lilith, the first wife of Adam.
Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks;
And, when she winds them round a young man’s neck,
She will not ever set him free again.
LXXXIII
Barren Spring
Composed 1870. Poems (1870).
9. crocus signifies youthful gladness.
10. snowdrop emblem of consolation, hope; apple-blossom symbolizes preference.
13. lily emblem of innocence.
LXXXV
Vain Virtues
Composed 1869. Poems (1870).
12. deigns no whit does not condescend.
LXXXVI
Lost Days
A Welcome (1863). First poetry volume Poems (1870).
XCV
The Vase of Life
Composed 1869. Fortnightly Review (March 1869). First poetry volume Poems (1870).
4. girt prepared and strengthened.
XCVII
A Superscription
Composed 1868–9. Fortnightly Review (March 1869). First poetry volume Poems (1870).
Title. Inscription written at the top of, above or over an existing line, letter or document.
5. glass mirror, looking glass.
CI
The One Hope
Composed 1970. Poems (1870).
13. the one Hope’s one name according to WMR’s notes, ‘the name of the woman supremely beloved upon earth’ (DGR, Works, 659).
To the P.R.B.
Composed 1849. FLM 2. See WBS’s ‘To the Artists Called P.R.B.’, John Tupper’s ‘A Quiet Evening’ and CGR’s ‘The P.R.B.’.
1. Woolner Thomas Woolner; Stephens Frederic George Stephens; Collinson James Collinson; Millais John Everett Millais. See Biographical Notes.
12. Browning the poet Robert Browning (1812–89).
14. Sordello the title of a critically reviled Browning poem (1840) which DGR particularly admired.
St Wagnes’ Eve
Composed 1851. FLM 2. See WBS’s ‘To the Artists Called P.R.B.’, John Tupper’s ‘A Quiet Evening’ and CGR’s ‘The P.R.B.’.
Title. Alludes to John Keats’s ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ (1819) and Alfred Tennyson’s ‘St Agnes’ Eve’ (1837), works which inspired Pre-Raphaelite paintings and poems. Wagnes based on ‘wag’, a joker.
1. hop-shop dancing academy held in the house in which DGR was renting a studio.
2. Collinson James Collinson – see Biographical Notes. He was known for falling asleep early and in company.
3. Deverell Walter Deverell – see Biographical Notes.
5. Hancock John Hancock (1825–69), sculptor and member of the Cyclographic Society.
7. Guardami ben … Beatrice ‘Observe me well. I am, in sooth, I am / Beatrice’, Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio 30.72–3 (Henry Francis Cary translation, 1814); Beatrice see note for l. 12 of FMB’s ‘Angela Damnifera’.
8. Bernhard Smith (1820–85), sculptor and painter, close Pre-Raphaelite associate.
13. William North (d. 1855), a writer, author of ‘The Infinite Republic’ (1851) and the posthumous novel The Slave of the Lamp (1855).
NONSENSE VERSES
Composed 1869–71. All limericks first published in The Rossetti Papers 1862–1870, ed. WMR (Sands & Co., 1903), except for ‘There was a young rascal called Nolly’ and ‘As a critic, the Poet Buchanan’, which appeared in DGR, Works. WMR grouped these limericks under the heading ‘Nonsense Verses’, noting that they had been inspired by Edward Lear’s Book of Nonsense (1846).
There’s an infantine Artist named Hughes
1. Hughes Arthur Hughes – see Biographical Notes.
2. R.A. Royal Academy.
There is a young Artist named Jones
1. Jones Edward Burne-Jones – see Biographical Notes.
There is a young Painter called Jones
1. Jones Edward Burne-Jones – see Biographical Notes.
There’s a combative Artist named Whistler
1. Whistler James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), American painter.
2. hog-hairs paint brushes (made of hog’s hair).
A Historical Painter named Brown
1. Brown Ford Madox Brown – see Biographical Notes.
3. epochs of victual mealtimes.
4. pudden … kittle mispronunciation of ‘pudding’ and ‘kettle’.
There was a young rascal called Nolly
1. Nolly Oliver Madox Brown – see Biographical Notes.
There’s a Scotch correspondent named Scott
1. Scott William Bell Scott – see Biographical Notes.
There once was a painter named Scott
1. Scott William Bell Scott – see Biographical Notes.
There’s the Irishman Arthur O’Shaughnessy
1. Arthur O’Shaughnessy see Biographical Notes.
There is a poor sneak called Rossetti
1. Rossetti Dante Gabriel Rossetti – see Biographical Notes.
As a critic, the Poet Buchanan
1. Buchanan Robert Buchanan (1841–1901), author of FS.
3. Into Maitland he shrunk Buchanan published his review under the pseudonym ‘Thomas Maitland’.
ELIZABETH SIDDAL
‘True Love’, ‘Dead Love’, ‘Shepherd Turned Sailor’, ‘Gone’, ‘Speechless’, ‘The Lust of the Eyes’, ‘Worn Out’ and ‘At Last’ are taken from RRP. Although he is uncertain, WMR puts their composition dates at roughly 1855–7. ‘Early Death’, ‘He and She and Angels Three’, ‘A Silent Wood’, ‘Love and Hate’, ‘The Passing of Love’, ‘Lord, May I Come?’ are taken from SR 1. WMR supplied the titles for these. He writes that he cannot provide composition dates, but guesses that ‘Lord, May I Come?’, ‘written in a very shaky and straggling way … must have been done under the influence of laudanum, … and probably not long before her death’ (SR 1, 196). ‘A Year and A Day’ is taken from FLM 1.
True Love
1 Earl Richard refers to a Scottish ballad, ‘Earl Richard’, adapted by Walter Scott in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1833). This volume also contains ‘Clerk Saunders’, for which Siddal painted a watercolour of the same name in 1857. The ballad concerns the murder of Earl Richard by his jealous lover, and the discovery of her guilt through the chattering of a tell-tale bird.
Dead Love
3. blue … red the colour blue is associated with chastity and loyalty, while red commonly symbolizes passion.
Shepherd Turned Sailor
See CGR’s ‘An End’.
Gone
11–12. tender dove / That left the ark after the flood, Noah releases a dove three times from the ark to seek land. After the third time, the dove does not return (Genesis 8:8–12).
Speechless
Liana Cheney in Pre-Raphaelitism and Medievalism in the Arts (E. Mellen Press, 1992) suggests that this poem is influenced by the poetry of Christine de Pisan (1363–c.1434).
The Lust of the Eyes
See DGR’s ‘The Portrait’ (1870), CGR’s ‘In an Artist’s Studio’, ACS’s ‘Before Parting’ and Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s ‘Paros’.
Worn Out
5–8. For I am but … away from thee see ll. 11–14 of DGR’s ‘Winged Hours’:
When, wandering ro
und my life unleaved, I know
The bloodied feathers scattered in the brake,
And think how she, far from me, with like eyes
Sees through the untuneful bough the wingless skies?
At Last
See CGR’s ‘After Death’.
12. winding-sheet shroud.
He and She and Angels Three
See DGR’s ‘Blessed Damozel’.
A Silent Wood
First published by WMR in the Burlington Magazine (May 1903). See DGR’s ‘Willowwood’ (Sonnets XLIX, L, LI, LII of The House of Life).
1–2. O silent wood … full of misery see the opening lines of Canto I of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, where the poet finds himself in crisis while wandering through ‘una selva oscura’ (‘a dark wood’).
7. boon blessing, favour.
Love and Hate
19. poisonous tree refers to Eve’s sampling of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge in Genesis 3. See also note for l. 260 of CGR’s ‘Goblin Market’ and Matthew 12:33: ‘Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.’
The Passing of Love
19–20. That dragged my idol … all its shrine see Exodus 32, where Moses destroys the golden calf and forbids the worship of idols.
Lord, May I Come?
16. lilies emblems of innocence.
A Year and a Day
7–10. I lie among … in its bed see ll. 7–10 of DGR’s ‘The Woodspurge’:
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.
My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon …
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI
Her First Season
Germ 1 (January 1850).
‘Jesus Wept’
Germ 4 (April 1850).
Title. John 11:35.
9. Mary and Martha sisters of Lazarus, whom Jesus raises from the dead.
10–11. ‘Where / Have ye … come and see’ (John 11:34).
The Evil Under the Sun
Germ 4 (April 1850).
Title. A common phrase of Ecclesiastes, appearing in several chapters: 4:3, 5:13, 6:1, 9:3 and 10:5.
1. How long, oh Lord? ‘My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O Lord, how long?’ (Psalms 6:3).
3. John Evangelist one of Christ’s twelve apostles.
4. Patmos Greek island in the Aegean Sea where St John was living when he had the visions of Revelation.
6. day of the great reckoning Judgement Day.
Dedication
Democratic Sonnets (Alston Rivers, 1907).
11. mortal Easter-day DGR died on Easter Sunday, 9 April 1882.
Mary Shelley
Composed 1851. Democratic Sonnets (Alston Rivers, 1907).
Title. Née Wollstonecraft Godwin (1797–1851). Author of Frankenstein (1818) and wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822).
1–2. her who … women’s cause Mary Wollestonecraft (1759–97), feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
3–4. him who reasoned … balance weighed William Godwin (1756–1836), radical and political philosopher.
9. for aye for ever.
11–12. thirtieth year of severance … drowned Shelley Shelley famously drowned when his sailing boat sank in a storm off the coast of Italy in 1822, twenty-nine years before she died (i.e. the ‘thirtieth year’ of their time apart).
12. Harriet Harriet Westbrook (1795–1816), Shelley’s first wife, who committed suicide by drowning.
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI
Dream Land
Composed April 1849. Germ 1 (January 1850). First poetry volume Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862). See Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Kubla Khan, or, A Vision in a Dream, a Fragment’ (1816). See also ACS’s ‘The Garden of Proserpine’ and ‘A Ballad of Dreamland’.
15–16. And hears the nightingale … sadly sings see John Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ (1819).
An End
Composed 5 March 1849. Germ 1 (January 1850). First poetry volume Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862).
1. Love, strong as Death ‘Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave …’ (Song of Solomon, 8:6). See also Sonnet 7, ll. 13–14, of ‘Monna Innominata’: ‘Though jealousy be cruel as the grave, / And death be strong, yet love is strong as death.’
4–5. A green turf … at his feet See Ophelia’s ‘Song’ in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet IV.v:
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
A Pause of Thought
Composed 14 February 1848. Germ 2 (February 1850). First poetry volume Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862).
2. hope deferred made my heart sick ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life’ (Proverbs 13:12).
Sweet Death
Composed 9 February 1849. Germ 2 (March 1850). First poetry volume Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862).
16. grass emblem of utility, submission; biblical symbol of mortality.
24. glean with Ruth the widowed Ruth marries Boaz after he sees her gleaning (gathering what was left by the reapers) in his cornfield. Their union begins the earthly lineage of Christ (Ruth 2–3). See also ll. 65–7 of John Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ (1819): ‘Perhaps the self-same song that found a path / Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, / She stood in tears amid the alien corn’.
Goblin Market
Composed 22 April 1859. Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862), for which DGR provided two illustrations. See William Allingham’s ‘The Fairies’.
3–4. ‘Come buy … come buy’ ‘Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price’ (Isaiah 55:1).
10. Swart-headed dark.
76. ratel badger-like animal, also known as a ‘honey badger’.
83. lily emblem of innocence.
126. precious golden lock in folklore, fairies prize golden hair, kidnapping or seducing golden-haired girls for fairy brides.
129. honey from the rock ‘He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock’ (Deuteronomy 32:13).
160. daisies emblems of innocence.
185. Like two pigeons ‘And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring … two young pigeons; the one for the burnt offering, the other for a sin offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean’ (Leviticus 12:7).
220. flags irises, symbolizing eloquence.
258. succous containing juice or sap.
260. Her tree of life the tree of life grew in the Garden of Eden: ‘And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food: the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil’ (Genesis 2:9). See also Revelation 22:2 and note for l. 2 of ‘A Pause of Thought’.
290. drouth drought.
395. Cross-grained contrary, intractable, perverse.
410. Like a rock of blue-veined stone ‘He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation upon a rock, and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it; for it was founded upon a rock’ (Luke 6:48).
415–16. orange-tree / White with blossoms orange blossom signifies chastity.
451. dingle hollow or dell.
471. Eat me, drink me ‘And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me’ (1 Corinthians 11:24). See also Christ’s words to his disciples during the sacramen
t of the Eucharist (Matthew 26:26–9, Mark 14:22–5 and Luke 22:17–20). See also Chapter 1 of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), where Alice follows the instructions ‘Eat me’ and ‘Drink Me’.
479. fruit forbidden see note for l. 19 of Elizabeth Siddal’s ‘Love and Hate’.
491. aguish feverish.
494. wormwood a bitter ingredient of vermouth and absinthe, used as a tonic.
A Birthday
Composed 18 November 1857. Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862). See John Payne’s ‘A Birthday Song’.
6. halcyon happy and peaceful.
9. dais platform for a throne.
10. vair fur used for trimming garments.
After Death
Composed 28 April 1849. Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862).
My Dream
Composed 9 March 1855. Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862).
15. waxed grew in size.
48. appropriate tears ‘crocodile’ tears.
The World
Composed 27 June 1854. Goblin Market (Macmillan, 1862). See John Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ (1820).
4. subtle serpents gliding in her hair allusion to the snake-haired gorgon Medusa whose looks turn men to stone. See Sonnet VII, l. 7, of George Meredith’s Modern Love: ‘serpent dwelling in rich hair’.
14. Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell? ‘For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell’ (Proverbs 5:3–5).
From The Prince’s Progress
This extract (ll. 481–540) was first published in Macmillan’s Magazine 7 (May 1863), p. 36. The complete poem first appeared in The Prince’s Progress (Macmillan, 1866), for which DGR provided two illustrations. In this poem, a prince who is ‘Strong of limb if of purpose weak’ (l. 47) procrastinates on his journey to rescue his princess, and arrives to find she has died waiting. In this extract, he is addressed by someone in her funeral cortège.
25. poppies signify sleep.
58. roses symbolize love and beauty.
The Queen of Hearts
Composed 3 January 1863. The Prince’s Progress (Macmillan, 1866). See DGR’s ‘The Card-Dealer’.
13. prepense planned or intended in advance, premeditated.
From Monna Innominata
Composed c.1879–80. A Pageant and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1881). English translations of the epigraphs from Dante’s Divine Comedy and Petrarch’s Canzoniere are by Charles Cayley (1823–83), scholar and close personal friend of CGR. Although she turned down his marriage proposal, CGR became his literary executor after his death.