Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription
Document Title: True Woman. III.
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1880
Type of Manuscript: draft copy
Scribe: DGR
The
full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
page: [1]
Note: Across the top of the page DGR has written a string of possible rhyme
words.
throng hung song wrung strung young among
- If to grow old in Heaven is to grow young
- (As the Seer saw & said,) then blest were he
- With youth for evermore
surely
whose heaven should be
-
Should live—with her whom
A True Woman, her whom these weak notes have sung.
- Here & hereafter,—
?
choir-strains of her tongue,—
- The heavenly things that in her eyes have place—
- Those breaks of sky
light in the twilight face—
- Were Paradise all uttermost
spheres
worlds among.
- The sunrise blooms & withers on the hill
-
10 Like any hillflower; & the noblest troth
- Dies here to dust. Yet
may
shall Heaven's promise clothe
- Even yet those lovers who have treasured still
- This test for love;—in every kiss sealed fast
- To feel the first kiss & forbode the last.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
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