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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: The Burden of Nineveh (fair copy fragment)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1869
Type of Manuscript: fair copy

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

Image of page [1] page: [1]
Manuscript Addition: 38[?]
Editorial Description: Mark in upper left corner.
more about The Burden of Nineveh.
The Burden of Nineveh.

“ Burden. Heavy calamity; the chorus of a song.”—Dictionary.

  • I have no taste for polyglot:
  • At the Museum 'twas my lot,
  • Just once, to jot and blot and rot
  • In Babel for I know not what.
  • I went at two, I left at three.
  • Round those still floors I tramp'd, to win
  • By the great porch the dirt and din;
  • And as I made the last door spin
  • And issued, they were hoisting in
  • 10 A wingèd beast from Nineveh.
  • A human face the creature wore,
  • And hoofs behind and hoofs before,
  • And flanks with dark runes fretted o'er.
  • 'Twas bull, 'twas mitred minotaur;
  • A dead disbowell'd mystery;
  • The mummy of a buried faith,
  • Stark from the charnel without scathe,
  • Its wings stood for the light to bathe,—
  • Such fossil cerements as might swathe
  • 20 The very corpse of Nineveh.
Image of page [1v] page: [1v]
Manuscript Addition: 37[?]
Editorial Description: Mark in upper left corner.
Please Print these

& let me have proof

as soon as possible
D G Rossetti

16 Cheyne Walk
P.S. I want to have all done

by Friday, as I am leaving

town.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 1-1850.sangms.rad.xml
Copyright: Published with the permission of Iziko Museums of Cape Town