May 12 The Harvard Classics, fifteen minutes a day
His Wife’s Golden Hair Enshrined His Poems
The manuscripts of many of the best poems of Rossetti were buried with his wife. Friends prevailed upon him to allow them to be exhumed—and these poems, once buried with the dead, are now a treasure of the living.
- Rossetti born May 12, 1828.
From the 1930 Reading Guide
Poems
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Page 1149 opens with James Thomson’s “Gifts”; the reading starts at “DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.”
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
[1828–1882]
714 The Blessèd Damozel
THE blessèd Damozel lean’d outFrom the gold bar of Heaven:Her blue grave eyes were deeper muchThan a deep water, even.She had three lilies in her hand,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 giftOn the neck meetly worn;And her hair, lying down her back,Was yellow like ripe corn.
Herseem’d she scarce had been a dayOne of God’s choristers;The wonder was not yet quite goneFrom that still look of hers;Albeit, to them she left, her dayHad counted as ten years.
(To one it is ten years of years:... Yet now, here in this place,Surely she lean’d o’er me,—her hairFell all about my face....Nothing: the Autumn-fall of leaves.The whole year sets apace.)
It was the terrace of God’s houseThat she was standing on,—By God built over the sheer depthIn which Space is begun;So high, that looking downward thence,She scarce could see the sun.
It lies from Heaven across the floodOf ether, as a bridge.Beneath, the tides of day and nightWith flame and darkness ridgeThe void, as low as where this earthSpins like a fretful midge.
But in those tracts, with her, it wasThe peace of utter lightAnd silence. For no breeze may stirAlong the steady flightOf seraphim; no echo there,Beyond all depth or height.
Heard hardly, some of her new friends,Playing at holy games,Spake, gentle-mouth’d, among themselves,Their virginal chaste names;And the souls, mounting up to God,Went by her like thin flames.
And still she bow’d herself, and stoop’dInto the vast waste calm;Till her bosom’s pressure must have madeThe bar she lean’d on warm,And the lilies lay as if asleepAlong her bended arm.
From the fixt lull of Heaven, she sawTime, like a pulse, shake fierceThrough all the worlds. Her gaze still strove,In that steep gulf, to pierceThe swarm; and then she spoke, as whenThe stars sang in their spheres.
‘I wish that he were come to me,For he will come,’ she said.‘Have I not pray’d in solemn Heaven?On earth, has he not pray’d?Are not two prayers a perfect strength?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 himTo the deep wells of light,And we will step down as to a streamAnd bathe there in God’s sight.
‘We two will stand beside that shrine,Occult, withheld, untrod,Whose lamps tremble continuallyWith prayer sent up to God;And where each need, reveal’d, expectsIts patient period.
‘We two will lie i’ the shadow ofThat living mystic treeWithin whose secret growth the DoveSometimes is felt to be,While every leaf that His plumes touchSaith His name audibly.
‘And I myself will teach to him,—I myself, lying so,—The songs I sing here; which his mouthShall pause in, hush’d and slow,Finding some knowledge at each pause,And some new thing to know.’
(Alas! to her wise simple mindThese things were all but knownBefore: they trembled on her sense,—Her voice had caught their tone.Alas for lonely Heaven! AlasFor life wrung out alone!
Alas, and though the end were reach’d? …Was thy part understoodOr borne in trust? And for her sakeShall this too be found good?—May the close lips that knew not prayerPraise ever, though they would?)
‘We two,’ she said, ‘will seek the grovesWhere the lady Mary is,With her five handmaidens, whose namesAre five sweet symphonies:—Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,Margaret and Rosalys.
‘Circle-wise sit they, with bound locksAnd bosoms coverèd;Into the fine cloth, white like flame,Weaving the golden thread,To fashion the birth-robes for themWho are just born, being dead.
‘He shall fear, haply, and be dumb.Then I will lay my cheekTo his, and tell about our love,Not once abash’d or weak:And the dear Mother will approveMy pride, and let me speak.
‘Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,To Him round whom all soulsKneel—the unnumber’d solemn headsBow’d with their aureoles:And Angels, meeting us, shall singTo their citherns and citoles.
‘There will I ask of Christ the LordThus much for him and me:—To have more blessing than on earthIn nowise; but to beAs then we were,—being as thenAt peace. Yea, verily.
‘Yea, verily; when he is comeWe will do thus and thus:Till this my vigil seem quite strangeAnd almost fabulous;We two will live at once, one life;And peace shall be with us.’
She gazed, and listen’d, and then said,Less sad of speech than mild,—‘All this is when he comes.’ She ceased:The light thrill’d past her, fill’dWith Angels, in strong level lapse.Her eyes pray’d, and she smiled.
(I saw her smile.) But soon their flightWas vague ’mid the poised spheres.And then she cast her arms alongThe golden barriers,And laid her face between her hands,And wept. (I heard her tears.)
The reading stops at the close of “The Blessèd Damozel” on page 1153. “The King’s Tragedy,” which begins at the foot of that page and runs to page 1178, is not part of the guide’s readings.
Volume 42, pages 1149–1153 · See the scanned page on archive.org
Poems
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Page 1178 opens with the close of “The King’s Tragedy”; the reading starts at “716 Lovesight.”
716 Lovesight
WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one?When in the light the spirits of mine eyesBefore thy face, their altar, solemnizeThe worship of that Love through thee made known?Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)Close-kissed and eloquent of still repliesThy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,And my soul only sees thy soul its own?O love, my love! if I no more should seeThyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,—How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slopeThe ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,The wind of Death’s imperishable wing?
717 Heart’s Hope
BY what word’s power, the key of paths untrod,Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,Till parted waves of Song yield up the shoreEven as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,Lady, I fain would tell how evermoreThy soul I know not from thy body, norThee from myself, neither our love from God.Yea, in God’s name, and Love’s, and thine, would IDraw from one loving heart such evidenceAs to all hearts all things shall signify;Tender as dawn’s first hill-fire, and intenseAs instantaneous penetrating sense,In Spring’s birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.
718 Genius in Beauty
BEAUTY like hers is genius. Not the callOf Homer’s or of Dante’s heart sublime,—Not Michael’s hand furrowing the zones of time,—Is more with compassed mysteries musical;Nay, not in Spring’s or Summer’s sweet footfallMore gathered gifts exuberant Life bequeathesThan doth this sovereign face, whose love-spell breathesEven from its shadowed contour on the wall.As many men are poets in their youth,But for one sweet-strung soul the wires prolongEven through all change the indomitable song;So in like wise the envenomed years, whose toothRends shallower grace with ruin void of ruth,Upon this beauty’s power shall wreak no wrong.
719 Silent Noon
YOUR hands lie open in the long, fresh grass,—The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms’Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edgeWhere the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn hedge.’Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-flyHangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky,—So this wing’d hour is dropped to us from above.Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,This close-companioned inarticulate hourWhen twofold silence was the song of love.
720 Love-Sweetness
SWEET dimness of her loosened hair’s downfallAbout thy face; her sweet hands round thy headIn gracious fostering union garlanded;Her tremulous smiles; her glances’ sweet recallOf love; her murmuring sighs memorial;Her mouth’s culled sweetness by thy kisses shedOn cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so ledBack to her mouth, which answers there for all:—What sweeter than these things, except the thingIn lacking which all these would lose their sweet:—The confident heart’s still fervor: the swift beatAnd soft subsidence of the spirit’s wing,Then when it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?
721 Heart’s Compass
SOMETIMES thou seem’st not as thyself alone,But as the meaning of all things that are;A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afarSome heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;Whose unstirred lips are music’s visible tone;Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,Being of its furthest fires oracular—The evident heart of all life sown and mown.Even such love is; and is not thy name Love?Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apartAll gathering clouds of Night’s ambiguous art;Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.
722 Her Gifts
HIGH grace, the dower of queens; and therewithalSome wood-born wonder’s sweet simplicity;A glance like water brimming with the skyOr hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall;Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthralThe heart; a mouth whose passionate forms implyAll music and all silence held thereby;Deep golden locks, her sovereign coronal;A round reared neck, meet column of Love’s shrineTo cling to when the heart takes sanctuary;Hands which for ever at Love’s bidding be,And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:—These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o’er.Breathe low her name, my soul; for that means more.
Page 1181 is shared with the next assignment (December 5); the reading stops before “CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI” and “723 Song.”
Volume 42, pages 1178–1181 · See the scanned page on archive.org
This is the reading for May 12 in Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (1930 edition), page 50. There the assignment reads “Vol. 42, pp. 1149–1153” and “Vol. 42, pp. 1178–1181.” Read it in the guide.