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.
page: [1]
- 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.
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
Copyright: By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University