Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription
Document Title: Ballads and Sonnets (1881), proof Signature C (Delaware Museum,
fragment with corrections of second revise)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of publication: 1881 April 13
Publisher: F. S. Ellis
Printer: Chiswick Press, C. Whittingham and Co.
Issue: 1
The
full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
page: 23
-
Go to her, mother,
-
Even thou, yea thou and none other,
-
Thou, from the Beryl:
-
Her fee must thou take her,
-
Her fee that We send, and make her
,
-
Even in this hour
, her sin's unsheltered avower.
-
20
Whose steed did neigh,
-
Riderless, bridle-less,
-
At her gate before it was day?
-
Lo! where doth hover
-
The soul of her lover?
-
She sealed his doom, she, she was the sworn
-
approver,—
-
Whose eyes were so wondrous wise,
-
Yet blind, ah! blind to his peril!
-
For stole not We in
-
Through a love-linked sin,
page: 24
-
30
'Gainst whom all powers at war with ours are
-
sterile,—
-
Fire-spirits of dread desire,
-
We whose home is the Beryl?
page: 25
- “
Pale Rose Mary, what shall be done
- With a rose that Mary weeps upon?”
- “Mother, let it fall from the tree,
- And never walk where the strewn leaves be
- Till winds have passed and the path is free.”
- “Sad Rose Mary, what shall be done
- With a cankered flower beneath the sun?”
- “Mother, let it wait for the night;
- Be sure its shame shall be out of sight
-
10Ere the moon pale or the east grow light.”
page: 26
- “Lost Rose Mary, what shall be done
- With a heart that is but a broken one?”
- “Mother, let it lie where it must;
- The blood was drained with the bitter thrust,
- And dust is all that sinks in the dust.”
- “Poor Rose Mary, what shall I do,—
- I, your mother, that lovèd you?”
- “O my mother, and is love gone?
- Then seek you another love anon:
-
20Who cares what shame shall lean upon?”
- Low drooped trembling Rose Mary,
- Then up as though in a dream stood she.
- “Come, my heart, it is time to go;
- This is the hour that has whispered low
- When thy pulse quailed in the nights we know.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1