Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Dennis Shand (Corrected Galley Proof)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of publication: 1869 August
Printer: Strangeways

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

Image of page [1] page: [1]
DENNIS SHAND.
  • The shadows fall along the wall,
  • It's night at Haye-la-Serre;
  • The maidens weave since day grew eve,
  • The lady's in her chair.
Image of page [2] page: [2]
Editorial Description: Printer's mark in left margin of line 72 to correct the inverted “e” in “ears”
Transcribed Note (page [2]):
Note: The galley is numbered “5” at the bottom.
  • O passing slow the long hours go
  • With time to think and sigh,
  • When weary maidens weave beneath
  • A listless lady's eye.
  • It's two days that Earl Simon's gone
  • 10 And it's the second night;
  • At Haye-la-Serre the lady's fair,
  • In June the moon is light.
  • O it's ‘Maids, ye'll wake till I come back,’
  • And the hound's i' the lady's chair:
  • No shuttles fly, the work stands by,
  • It's play at Haye-la-Serre.
  • The night is worn, the lamp's forlorn,
  • The shadows waste and ail;
  • There's morning air at Haye-la-Serre,
  • 20 The watching maids look pale.
  • O all unmarked the birds at dawn
  • Where drowsy maidens be;
  • But heard too soon the lark's first tune
  • Beneath the trysting-tree.
  • ‘Hold me thy hand, sweet Dennis Shand,’
  • Says the Lady Joan de Haye,
  • ‘That thou to-morrow do forget
  • To-day and yesterday.
  • ‘O it's the autumn nights are chill,
  • 30 The winter nights are long,
  • And my lord 'll bide at home o' nights
  • As long as the swallow's gone.
  • ‘This summer he'll not be forth again
  • And not again till spring;
  • The wind is cold to him that's old
  • And the frost withering.
  • ‘We've all to fear; there's Maud the spy,
  • There's Ann whose face I scor'd,
  • There's Blanch tells Huot everything,
  • 40 And Huot loves my lord.
  • ‘But O and it's my Dennis 'll know,
  • When my eyes look weary dim,
  • Who finds the gold for his girdle-fee
  • And who keeps love for him.’
  • The morrow's come and the morrow-night,
  • It's feast at Haye-la-Serre,
  • And Dennis Shand the cup must hand
  • Beside Earl Simon's chair.
  • And still when the high pouring's done
  • 50 And cup and flagon clink,
  • Till his lady's lips have touched the brim
  • Earl Simon will not drink.
  • ‘But it's, ‘Joan my wife,’ Earl Simon says,
  • ‘Your maids are white and wan.’
  • And it's, ‘O,’ she says, ‘they've watched the night
  • With Maud's sick sister Ann.’
  • But it's, ‘Lady Joan and Joan my bird,
  • Yourself look white and wan.’
  • And it's, ‘O, I've walked the night myself
  • 60 To pull the herbs for Ann:
  • ‘And some of your knaves were at the hutch
  • And some in the cellarage,
  • But the only one that watched with us
  • Was Dennis Shand your page.
  • ‘Look on the boy, sweet honey lord,
  • And mark his drooping e'e:
  • The rosy colour's not yet back
  • That paled in serving me.’
  • O it's, ‘Wife, your maids are foolish jades,
  • 70 And you're a silly chuck,
  • And the lazy knaves shall get their staves
  • About their ears for luck:
  • ‘But Dennis Shand may take the cup
  • And pour the wine to his hand;
  • Wife, thou shalt touch it with thy lips,
  • And drink thou, Dennis Shand!’
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 4-1850.harvard.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University