A Last Confession (fair copy manuscript with corrections, Fitzwilliam Museum)

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Document Title: A Last Confession (fair copy manuscript with corrections, Fitzwilliam Museum)

Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Date of Composition: 1869 (Manuscript copied in October 1869 from an earlier copy made before 1862)

Scribe: DGR

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

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[???]

A Last Confession—

(Regno Lombardo-Veneto. 1848.)

Our Lombard country-girls along the coast
Wear daggers in their garters; for they know
That they might hate another girl to death
Or meet a German lover. Such a knife
I bought her, with a hilt of horn and pearl.

Father, you cannot know of all my thoughts
That day in going to meet her,—that last day
For the last time, she said;—of all the love
And all the hopeless hope that she might change
10And go back with me. Ah! and everywhere,
At places we both knew along the road,
Some fresh shape of herself as she had been once she was
Grew present at my side; until it seemed—
So close they gathered round me—they would all
Be with me when I reached the spot at last,
To plead my cause with her against herself
So changed. O Father, if you knew all this
You cannot know, then you would know too, Father,

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And only then, if God can pardon me.
20What can be told I'll tell, if you will hear.

I passed a village-fair upon my road,
And thought, being empty-handed, I would take
Some little present, to bring which might prove which might prove that day
Either a pledge between us, or (God help me!)
A parting gift. And there I bought the knife.

That day, some three hours afterwards, I found
For certain, it must be a parting gift.
And, standing silent now at last, I looked
Into her scornful face; and heard the sea
30Still trying hard to din into my ears
Some speech it knew which still might change my her heart
If only it could make me understand.
One moment thus. Another, and her face
Seemed further off than the last line of sea,
So that I thought, if now she were to speak
I could not hear her. Then again I knew
All, as we stood together on the sand
At Iglio, in the first thin shade o' the hills.

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“Take it,” I said, and held it out to her,
40While the hilt glanced in my unsteady hand within my trembling hold;
“Take it,” I said, “ and keep it for my sake,”
Her neck did not unbend, nor did her eyes fell
Nor Fall, nor her foot left to beating of the sand;
Only she put it by from her and laughed.

Father, the whole of this is true, she laughed you hear my speech and not her laugh;
I wish you had been there to hear and judge—
But God was there and heard. Father, will God
Pardon me thus? He heard her when she laughed For he was there and laughed He heard her when she laughed.

It was another laugh than the sweet laugh sound
That filled her candid childish heart Which rose from her sweet childish heart, that day
50Eleven years before, when first I found her
Alone upon the hillside; and her curls
Shook down in the warm grass as she looked up
With those great eyes Out of her curls in my eyes bent to hers.
She might have served a painter for that child to pourtray
So [?] she was That fair heavenly child which in the latter days
Shall walk between the lion and the lamb.

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Note: Received lines 69-71 are copied fair on this verso opposite the recto passage, which is heavily obscured with corrections.

Added Text

They kissed her both long, and wept and made her weep,

And gave her all the bread they had with them,

And then had gone together up the hill

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I had been for nights in hiding, worn and sick
And hardly fed; and so her words at first
Seemed fitful like the talking of the trees
60And voices in the air that knew my name.
And I remember that I sat me down
Upon the slope with her, and thought the world
Must be all over or had never been,
We seemed there so alone. And soon she told me
Her parents were both both were gone away from her.
And she was by herself—I thought perhaps
Added TextI thought perhaps she meant that they had died;
That they had died; but when I asked her this
She meant that they had died. But when I asked her,
She only looked again into my face
Added TextBut when I asked her this, she looked again
With serious eyes Into my face, and said that yestereve
They kissed her ? and ?
They had both gone together up the hill
Where we were sitting now, and had walked on
70Into the great red light: “and so,” she said,
“I have come up here too; and when this evening
They step out of the light as they stepped in,
I shall be here to kiss them.” And she laughed.

Then I bethought me suddenly of the famine;
And how the church-steps throughout all the town,

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When last I had been there a month ago,
Swarmed with starved folk; and how the bread was weighed
By Austrians armed; and women that I knew
For wives and mothers walked the public street,
80Telling their husbands how, if they still feared
To snatch the children's food, themselves would stay
Till they had earned it there. So then this child
Was piteous to me; for that I knew then for all told me then
Her parents must have gone away and left her left her to God's chance,
Added TextTo man's or to the Church's charity,
Because of the great famine, rather than
To watch her growing thin between their knees.
With that, God took my mother's voice and spoke,
And sights and smells sounds came back & things long since.
90And all my childhood found me on the hills;
And so I took her with me.

I was young,
Scarce man then, Father; but the cause which gave
The wounds I die of now had brought me then
Some wounds already; and I lived alone,
As any hiding hunted man must live.
It was no easy thing to keep a child
In safety; for herself it was not safe,

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And doubled my own danger: but I knew
That God would help me.

Yet a little while
Pardon me, Father, if I pause. I think
I have been speaking to you of some matters
There was no need to speak of, have I not?
You do not know how clearly those things stood
Within my mind, which I have spoken of,
Nor how they strove for utterance. Life all past
Is like the sky when the sun sets in it,
Clearest where furthest off.

I told you then how
She scorned my parting gift and laughed. And yet
110A woman's laugh's another thing sometimes:
I think they laugh in Heaven. I know last night
I dreamed I saw into the garden of God,
Where women walked whose painted images
I have seen with candles round them in the church.
They bent this way and that, one to another,
Playing: and over the long golden hair

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Of each there floated like a ring of fire
Which when she stooped stooped with her, and when she rose
Rose with her. Then a breeze flew in among them,
120As if a window had been opened in heaven
For God to give his blessing from, before
This world of ours should set; (for in my dream
I thought our world was setting, and the sun
Flared, a spent taper;) and beneath that gust
The rings of light quivered like forest-leaves.
Then all the blessed maidens who were there
Stood up together, as it were a voice
That called them; and they threw their white throats back,
Making their bosoms all jut out at once,
130And smote their palms, and all laughed up at once,
For the strong heavenly joy they had in them
To hear God bless the world. Wherewith I woke:
And looking round, I saw as usual
That she was standing there with her long locks
Pressed to her side; and her laugh ended theirs.

For always when I see her now, she laughs.
And yet her childish laughter haunts me still too,

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Note: Received lines 142-179 are copied on this verso opposite the first version of the passage which is cancelled on the recto and the next recto (a total of 44 lines, 32 of which are on page 8).

Added Text

I brought her from the city:—one such day
When she was still a little merry loving child,—
The earliest gift I mind my giving her;
A little image of a flying Love
Made of glazed ware and painted our coloured glass-ware, in his hands
A dart of gilded metal and a torch.
And him she kissed and me, and fain would know
Why were his poor eyes blindfold, why the wings
And why the arrow. All What I knew I told
Of Venus and of Cupid,—strange old tales.
And when she heard that he could rule the loves
Of men and women, still she shook her head
And wondered; and, “Nay, nay,” she murmured still,
“So strong, and he a younger child than I!”
And then she'd have me fix him on the wall
Fronting her little bed; and then again
She needs must fix him there herself, because
I gave him to her and she loved him so,
And he should make her love me better yet,
If women loved the more, the more they grew.
But the fit place upon the wall was high
For her, and so I held her in my arms:
And each time that the heavy pruning-hook
I gave her for a hammer slipped away
As it would often, still she laughed and laughed
And kissed and kissed me. But amid her mirth,
Just as she hung the image on the nail,
It slipped and all its fragments strewed the ground:
And as it fell she screamed, for in her hand
The dart had entered deeply and drawn blood.
And so her laughter turned to tears: and ‘Oh!’
I said, the while I bandaged the fair small hand,—
“That I should be the first to make you bleed,
Who love and love and love you!”—kissing still
The fingers till I got her safe to bed.
And still she sobbed,—“not for the pain at all,”
She said, “but for the Love, the poor good Love
You gave me.” So she cried herself to sleep.

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The life of this dead terror; as in days
When she, a child, dwelt with me. I must say tell
140Something of those days yet before the end.

Deleted Text

I brought her from the city, one such day
The earliest gift I mind my giving her,—
A little image of great Jesus Christ
Whom yet she knew but dimly. I had not
Yet told her all the wondrous things of Faith,
For in our life of deadly hate, the child
Might ill be taught that God and Truth were one.
Our Lady's picture she had seen and loved
Her eyes and gently folded hands; and often now
Would look to see her pass upon the road
Added TextNo longer looked to greet her on the road
In a great carriage, as she sometimes met
Some noble neighbour lady countess. But when I
Had given her the Christ, and she had asked
Why the good Lord was always shown in pain,
I spoke to her, and told her how the Lady
She loved was now the Queen of the whole world,
And how that image was her blessed Son
To whom all things in Heaven and earth and Hell

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Deleted Text

Bow down for homage. And she knelt and prayed

Her hands in one of mine. This done, I took

The cross that I might fix it oer her bed;

But this the child herself begged leave to do;

Over her pillow; but she begged of me

And each time that the heavy pruning-hook

That I would let her try. And so she tried

I gave her for a hammer slipped away

As it would often, she turned round to see

I was not mocking her; each time she turned

Laughing herself at her own awkwardness;

And then, in setting to her task again

With hair pushed back, would [h--?] her laughter down

For very awe of the uplifted face.

There is another Another later thing comes back to me.
'Twas in those hardest foulest days of all,
When still from his shut palace, sitting clean
Above the splash of blood, old Metternich
(Gli mangia anima! che se la mangi
Added Text(May his soul die, and never-dying worms
Quel vermi [?] !) Feast on his soul its pain for ever!) used to thin
His year's doomed hundreds daintily, each month
Thirties and fifties. This time, as I think,

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Was [?] when his thrift forbad the poor to take
For food that evil brackish salt, the rocks
Added TextThat evil brackish salt which the dry rocks
150Keep all through winter when the sea draws in.
The first I heard of it was a chance shot
Here and there in the street, and on the stones
A stumbling clatter as of horse hemmed round.
Then, when she saw me hurry out of doors,
My gun slung off at my shoulder and my knife
Stuck in my girdle, she smoothed down my hair
And laughed to see me look so brave, and leaped
Up to my neck and kissed me. She was still
A child; and yet that kiss was on my lips
160So hot all day where the smoke shut us in.

For now, being always with her, the first love
I had for her—the father's love—was changed, the father's, brother's
I had—the father's, brother's love—was changed,
I think, in somewise; like a holy thought
Which is a prayer ere one well before one knows of it.
The first time I perceived this, I remember,
Was once when after hunting she I came home
170Weary, and she brought food and fruit for me,
And sat down at my feet upon the floor

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Note: Received lines 210-222 are drafted on this verso opposite the cancelled recto passage.

Added Text

Her sweet head reach from that low seat of hers

So high as to be laid upon my heart,

I turned and looked upon my darling there

And marked for the first time how tall she was;

And my heart beat with so much violence

Under her cheek, I thought that she could not choose

But wonder at it soon and ask me why;

And so I bade her rise and eat with me.

And when, remembering all and counting back

The year time, I made out thirteen years for her

And told her so, she fix gazed into my face,

And bent her body back like a bent bow,

And drew her long hands through her hair, & asked me

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Leaning against my side. But when I felt
Her sweet hand reach so high as to be laid
Upon my heart, I turned and looked at her
Marking for the first time how tall she was
And for the first time marked
And my heart beat with so much violence
Under her cheek, I thought that she could not
But feel and wonder at it: so I bade her
Rise up, and sit and eat with me. And then
? counting back the time
I made out thirteen years ? for her
Counting, I made out fourteen years for her
And told her so, ? she looked at me
And bent her body ?
And ? her long hair through her hands, & asked me
If she was not a woman; and then laughed:
And as she stooped in laughing, I could see
Beneath the growing throat the breasts half globed
Like folded lilies deepset in the stream.

Yes, let me think of her as then; for so
Her image, Father, does not bring the sights
180Which come when you are gone. She had a mouth
Made to bring death to life,—the underlip
Sucked in, as if it strove to kiss itself.
Her face was ever pale, as when one stoops

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Note: Received lines 237-269 are drafted on this verso opposite an 8 line cancelled recto passage.

Added Text

Her body bore her neck as the tree's stem
Bears the top branch; and as that the branch sustains
That ? fruit and flower Its pride of flower and fruit, her high neck bore
That face made wonderful with day and night & day.
Her voice clung to its sounds and let the beat was swift, yet ever the last words
[?] Fell lingeringly; and rounded finger-tips [?]
She had, that clung a moment little where they touched
And then sprung off were gone o' the sudden instant. Her great eyes,
That sometimes turned half dizzily beneath
The passionate lids, as faint, when she would speak,
Had also in them all the hidden springs of mirth,
Which under neath the [?] dark lashes evermore evermore
Shook to her laugh, as when a bird flies low
Between the water and the willow-leaves,
And the shade quivers till he wins the light.

I was a moody comrade to her then,
For all the love I bore her. Italy,
The weeping desolate mother, long has claimed
Her sons' strong arms to lean on, and their hands
[???] her wrongs To lop the poisonous thicket from her path,
Cleaving her way to light. And from her need
Had grown the fashion of my whole poor life
Which I was proud to yield her, as my father
Had yielded his. And this had grown come to be
A game to play, a love to clasp, a hate
To wreak, all things together that a man
Needs for his blood to ripen: till at times
All else seemed shadows, and I wondered still
To see such life pass muster and be deemed
[???] Time's bodily substance. [?] In those hours, no doubt,
To the young girl my eyes were like my soul,—
Dark wells of death-in-life that yearned for day.
And though she ruled me always, I remember

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Over wan water; and the dark crisped hair
And the hair's shadow made it paler still.
She was not yet past girlhood, but her arms
Were lithe, and her clear shoulders low and firm,
And when she drew herself up suddenly
Her body bent like a bent bow. Her eyes
That sometimes turned half dizzily beneath
The passionate lids, as faint, when she would speak
Had also in them a rich spring of mirth
Which the laugh stirred like water suddenly
One day That once when I was sad thus and she still kept
Leaping about the place and laughing, I
Did almost chide her; whereupon she knelt
And putting her two hands into my breast
190Sang me a song. Are these tears in my eyes?
'Tis long since I have wept for anything.
I thought that song forgotten out of mind,
And now, just as we I spoke of it, it came
All back. I know not ? it up It is but a rude thing, ill rhymed,
'Tis an old tune ill-rhymed, but it ran thus
Added TextSuch as a blind man chaunts and his dog hears
Holding the platter, when the children run
To merrier sport and leave him. Thus it goes:—

Piange Madonna

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Piange Madonna
E piangendo disse:—
“Come son fisse
Le stelle in suso!
Quel calor fuso
Dello stanco sole,
Quanto m'assonna!
E la luna, macchiata
Come uno specchio
10Logoro e vecchio,—
Le sia domandata.
Che cosa vuole!

“Che stelle, luna, e sole,
Ciascun m'annoja
E tutti insieme;
Non me ne preme
Ne ci prendo gioja.
E veramente,
Che le spalle sien franche
20E le braccia bianche
E il seno caldo e tondo,
Non mi fa niente.
Che cosa al mondo

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Posso più far di questi
Se non piacciono a te, come dicesti?”

Madonna rise
E disse ridendo:—
“Questa mano che prendo
È dunque mia?
30Tu m'ami dunque?
Dimmelo ancora,
Non in modo qualunque,
Ma le parole
Belle e precise
Che dicesti pria.

“ Siccome suole
La state talora
(Dicesti) un qualche istante
Tornare innanzi inverno,
40 Così tu fai ch'io scerno
Le foglie tutte quante,
Ben ch'io lung' or tenessi
Per passato l'autunno.

“Eccolo il mio alunno!
Io debbo insegnargli
Quei cari detti istessi
Ch'ei mi disse una volta!
Lasso! e che cosa dargli”
(Ma ridea piano piano
50Dei baci in sulla mano,)
“Ch'ei non m'abbia da lungo tempo tolta?”

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Note: This is a proof page with a printed text of the first 25 lines of the Italian song, with autograph corrections, and with the English translation along with DGR's note to the printed text handwritten beside it.

Manuscript Addition: 91

Editorial Description: Printed page number cancelled by DGR

Manuscript Addition: 15

Editorial Description: Pagination in upper right corner

MADONNA CONSOLATA

Piange Madonna
Added TextLa bella donna
E p Piangendo disse:—
“Come son fisse
Le stelle in suso! cielo!
Quel calor fuso fiato anelo
Dello stanco sole,
Quanto m'assonna!
E la luna, macchiata
Come uno specchio
10Logoro e vecchio,—
Le sie domandata. [???]
Added TextFaccia [?]
Che cosa vuole ?

“Chè stelle, luna, e sole,
Ciascun m'annoja
E tutti m'annojano insieme;
Non me ne preme
Ne ci prendo gioja.
E veramente,
Che le spalle sien franche
20E le braccia bianche
E il seno caldo e tondo,
Non mi fa niente.
Che cosa al mondo
Posso piu far di questi
Se non piacciono a te, come dicesti? ”

Printer's Direction: Turn over

Editorial Description: The printed text of the Italian poem consists of a recto side, which appears in this image, and a verso side, which appears in the following image (see page 15r, reverse flap).

* She wept, my sweet lady,
And said in weeping:—
“What spell is keeping
The stars so steady?
Why does the power
Of the sun's noon-hour
To sleep so move me?
And the moon in heaven,
Stained where she passes
10 As a worn-out glass is,—
Wearily driven,
Why walks she above me?

“Stars, moon, & sun too,
I'm tired of either
And all together!
Whom speak they unto
That I should listen?
For very surely,
Though my arms and shoulders
20 Dazzle beholders,
And my eyes glisten,
All's nothing purely!
What are words said for
At all about them,
If he they are made for
Can do without them?”

She laughed, my sweet lady,
And said in laughing:—
“His hand clings half in
30 My own already!
Oh! do you love me?
[???]
[???]
Added TextOh! speak of passion
Added TextIn no new fashion,
No loud inveighings,
But the old sayings
You once said of me.

“You said: “As summer,
Through boughs grown brittle,
Comes back a little
40 Ere frosts benumb her,—
So bring'st thou to me
All leaves and flowers,
Though autumn's gloomy
To-day in the bowers.”

“Oh! does he love me,
When my voice teaches
The very speeches
He then spoke of me?
Alas! what flavour
50 Still with me lingers?”
(But she laughed as my kisses
Glowed in her fingers
With love's old blisses.)
“Oh! what one favour
Left over to woo him,
Whose whole poor savour
Belongs not to him?”

Manuscript Addition: 13

Editorial Description: DGR's number inserted at upper right below the end of the English text.

Printer's Direction: NB The Italian to be printed in the text in small type. The English in a footnote, in small type and in double columns, so as to get it all into the page on which the Italian begins. If absolutely necessary the footnote must be in still smaller text than the Italian song.

Editorial Description: Note blocked off in hand by DGR on the right.

page: 15r, reverse flap

Note: This image shows the continuation of the Italian song (received lines 307-322) printed on the verso side of the page pasted onto 15r. Only the printed text and DGR's manuscript corrections are transcribed here. The surrounding text (DGR's note to the printer and his English translation of the poem) may be found in the transcription of 15r given above.

Madonna La donna rise
E disse riprese ridendo:—
“Questa mano che prendo
E dunque mia?
30Tu m'ami dunque?
Dimmelo ancora,
Non in modo qualunque,
Ma le parole
Belle e precise
Che dicesti pria.

“ Siccome suole
La state talora
(Dicesti) un qualche istante
Tornare innanzi inverno,
40 Così tu fai ch'io scerno
Le foglie tutte quante,
Ben ch'io lung' or certo tenessi
Per passato l'autunno.

“Eccolo il mio alunno!
Io debbo insegnargli
Quei cari detti istessi
Ch'ei mi disse una volta!
Lasso! e c Oime! Che cosa dargli,”
(Ma ridea piano piano
50Dei baci in su la sulla mano,)
‘Ch'ei non m'abbia da lungo tempo tolta?’

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Note: blank page

page: 16r

Manuscript Addition: 14/16

Editorial Description: Pagination in upper right corner

That I should sing upon this bed!—with you
To listen, and such words still left to say!
200Yet was it I that sang? The voice seemed hers,
As on the very day she sang to me;
When, having sung, she took out of my hand
Something that I had played with all the while
And laid it down beyond my reach; and so
Turning my face round till it fronted hers,—
“Weeping or laughing, which was best?” she said.

But these are foolish tales. How should I show
The heart that glowed then with love's heat, each day
More and more brightly?—when for long years least now
210The very flame that flew about the heart,
And gave it fiery wings, has come to be
The lapping blaze of hell's environment
Whose tongues all bid the molten heart despair.

Yet one more there's one one more thing comes back on me to-night
Which I may tell you: for it bore my soul
Dread firstlings of the brood that rend it now.

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Note: blank page

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Editorial Description: Pagination in upper right corner

It happened then that in our chanced that in our last year's wanderings
We dwelt at Monza, far away from home,
If home we had: and in the Duomo there
220I sometimes entered with her when she prayed.
An Image of Our Lady decked stands there, wrought
In marble by some great Italian hand
In the great days when she and Italy
Sat on one throne together: and to her,
And to none else, my darling told her heart.
She was a woman then; and as she knelt,—
Her sweet brow in the sweet brow's shadow there,—
They seemed two kindred forms which our dear whereby our land
(Whose work still serves the world for miracle)
230 Blent earth herself in wondrous womanhood
Added TextMade manifest herself in womanhood.
Father, the day I speak of was the first
For weeks that I had borne her company
Into the Duomo; and those weeks had been
Much troubled, for then first the thought arose glimpses came
That she so loved was growing changed and cold
Added TextOf some impenetrable restlessness
Growing in her to make her changed and cold.
And as we entered in there that day, I bent
My eyes on the fair Image, and I said
Within my heart, “Oh warm her heart to me!”

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Note: blank page

page: 18r

Manuscript Addition: 16/18

Editorial Description: Pagination in upper right corner

240And so I left her to her prayers, and went
To gaze upon the pride of Monza's shrine,
Where in the sacristy the day still falls
Upon the Iron Crown of Italy,
On whose crowned heads the day has closed, nor yet
Its halo gilds another head to crown.
But coming back, I wondered when I saw
That image stand alone; till further along
Added TextThat the sweet Lady of her prayers now stood
Alone without her; until further off,
Before some fresh Madonna newly decked,
250Tinselled and gewgawed, a slight German toy,
I saw her kneel, still praying. At my step
She rose, and side by side we left the church.
I was much moved, and sharply questioned her
Of her transferred devotion; but she seemed
Stubborn and heedless; till she lightly laughed
And “Aye, the old Madonna!” (so she said)
Added TextAnd said: “The old Madonna? Aye indeed,
“She had my old thoughts,—this one has my new.”
Then silent to the soul I held my way:
And from the fountains of the public place
260Unto the pigeon-haunted pinnacles,
Bright wings and water winnowed the bright air;
And stately with her laugh's subsiding smile

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She went, with well poised feet and glowing arms clear-swayed waist & towering neck
And hands held light before her; and the face
Which long had made a day in my life's night
Seemed Was night in day to me; as all men's eyes
Turned on her beauty, and she seemed to tread
Beyond my heart to the world made for her.