This is an epistolary sonnet sent to Woolner, who had emigrated to Australia in July 1852. Its form thus recalls the various poems and sonnets DGR had written to WMR and the other PRB brethren in the fall of 1849 when he and Hunt went to the continent together. The wordplay on the final word of line four, “rime”, is the pivot for the sonnet, recollecting the days when DGR and Woolner and the other PRB were writing poems together in London. The word nicely points the distance that the sonnet laments—between the north that is London and the south that is Australia.
No manuscript of the sonnet is known.
Printing History
First published by WMR in 1895 in his
Memoir, 165
and collected thereafter.
This collection contains 2 texts and images, including:
1911
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This is an epistolary sonnet sent to Woolner, who had emigrated to Australia in July 1852. Its form thus recalls the various poems and sonnets DGR had written to WMR and the other PRB brethren in the fall of 1849 when he and Hunt went to the continent together. The wordplay on the final word of line four, “rime”, is the pivot for the sonnet, recollecting the days when DGR and Woolner and the other PRB were writing poems together in London. The word nicely points the distance that the sonnet laments—between the north that is London and the south that is Australia.
No manuscript of the sonnet is known.
Printing History
First published by WMR in 1895 in his Memoir, 165 and collected thereafter.