Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription
Document Title: Sister Helen (corrected copy of lines 204-231, Princeton/Troxell collection):
Rossetti Archive Document
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1879 (circa)
Type of Manuscript: draft manuscript
Scribe: DGR
The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
- ‘A lady's here, by a dark steed brought,
- Sister Helen,
- So darkly clad, I saw her not.’
- ‘See her now or never see aught,
- Little brother!’
- ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
- What more to see, between Hell and Heaven?)
- ‘Her hood falls back, and the moon shines fair,
- Sister Helen,
- 10 On the Lady of Ewern's golden hair.’
- ‘Blest hour of my power & her despair,
- Little brother!’
- ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
- Hour blest and bann'd, between Hell and Heaven! )
- ‘Her clasped hands stretch from her bending head,
- Sister Helen;
- With the loud wind's wail her sobs are wed.’
- ‘What wedding-strains hath her bridal-bed,
- Little brother?’
- 20 ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
- What strain but death's, between Hell & Heaven? )
- ‘ All wild her looks, to their instant glow/ [?] flow/ Pale, pale her cheeks to their bridal-glow/ that [?] show Pale, pale her cheeks, that in pride did glow,
- 30 Sister Helen, Sister Helen,
-
Of the blush they were three days ago/To their bridal blush
Added Text'Neath the bridal-wreath three days ago’
- ‘One morn for joy bliss and three days for woe,
- Little brother!’
- ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
- Three days, three nights between Hell and Heaven! )
- ‘Pale, pale her cheeks, that in pride did glow,
- Sister Helen,
- 'Neath the bridal-wreath three days ago.’
- ‘One morn for bliss and three days for woe,
- 40 Little brother!’
- ( O Mother, Mary Mother,
- Three days, three nights, between Hell & Heaven! )
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File:
2-1851.troxms1.rad.xml
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