Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription
Document Title: A Soul Singing
Author: William Michael Rossetti
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1848
Type of Manuscript: fair copy corrected
Scribe: DGR
The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.
![Image of page [1r]](http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/37-1848.dukems.1.jpg)
Manuscript Addition: (9 m.)
Editorial Description: Notation at lower right indicating it was written in nine minutes.
- I held my breath and listened to her song:
- The sounds flowed came from her lips as sweet as I knew the words how well for they were those
- Which Angels sing to God The first I heard her sing; and a repose,
- Almost a trance, fell/came was on me, while the long
- Unbroken harmony came quick slow and strong,
-
As it is in the Church when the priest shows
Added TextLike in a grand Church's music near its close
- Christ's body to his worshippers:— it And still it rose & sank & sank & rose
- And rose up to the sky up like a flame. Meseemed that wrong
- Must pause while she was singing, and that whom
- 10 Hope had forsaken, as if they were The true life was gone out of, being rid
- Quite of her, Of love & truth must then feel that Love o'er find out that it is all
- The world will triumph; that, Pretence. They come; but now tho' in the tomb
- Darkly Shut down & nailed beneath the coffin-lid,
- They will would live and rise up when he shall if Love should call.
W.M.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File:
37-1848.dukems.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the Special Collections Library, Duke University