The Bodleian Notebook (“Kelmscott Love Sonnets”)

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Document Title: The Bodleian Notebook (“Kelmscott Love Sonnets”)

Author: DGR

Date of Composition: 1874

Type of Manuscript: fair copy with corrections

Scribe: DGR

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

page: [1]

Note: This text is written on the first page of the book, which is a kind of inner cover made of stiff paper, cream colored.

This album, and another of similar shape

containing the original form of the long poem

Rose Mary, now in the British Museum, was

written for Mrs. William Morris by Rossetti,

and preserved at Kelmscott Manor. It was

presented to the Bodleian Library, together

with a number of sonnets on single leaves,

in Rossetti's hand and sent to Mrs. William

Morris, by me as library executor of her

daughter Miss May Morris.

Robert Steele

page: [2]

Note: Blank page.

page: [3]

Heart's Hope.

By what word's power, the key of paths untrod,
Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore,
Till parted waves of song yield up the shore
Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod?
For lo! in some poor rhythmic period,
Lady, I fain would tell how evermore
Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor
Thee from myself, neither our Love from God.

Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
10 Draw from one loving heart such evidence
As to all hearts all things shall signify;
Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense
As instantaneous penetrating sense,
In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by.

page: [4]

Love Enthroned.

I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:—
Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast;
And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen past
To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;
And Youth, with some bright spray of woman's hair
Yet to his shoulder clinging, since the last
Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.

Love's throne was not with these; but far above
10 All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;
Though Truth foreknow Love's heart, and Hope foretell,
And Fame be for Love's sake desirable,
And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love.

page: [5]

Through Death to Love.

Like labour-laden moonclouds faint to flee
From winds that sweep the winter-bitten wold,—
Like multiform circumfluence manifold
Of night's flood-tide,—like terrors that agree
Of hoarse-tongued fire and inarticulate sea,—
Even such, within some glass dimmed by our breath,
Our hearts discern wild images of Death,
Shadows and shoals that edge eternity.

Howbeit athwart Death's imminent shade doth soar
10 One Power than flow of stream or flight of dove
Sweeter to glide around, to brood above.
Tell me, my heart,—what angel-greeted door
Or threshold of wing-winnowed threshing-floor
Hath guest fire-fledged as thine, whose lord is Love?

page: [6]

Love's Fatality.

Sweet Love,—but oh! most dread Desire of Love
Life-thwarted. Linked in gyves I saw them stand,
Love shackled with Vain-longing, hand to hand:
And one was eyed as the blue vault above:
But hope tempestuous like a fire-cloud hove
I' the other's gaze, even as in his whose wand
Vainly all night with spell-wrought girths has spann'd
The unyielding caves of some deep treasure-trove.

Also his lips, two writhen flakes of flame,
10 Made moan: “Alas O Love, thus leashed with me!
Wing-footed thou, wing-shouldered, once born free:
And I, thy cowering self, in chains grown tame,—
Bound to thy body and soul, named with thy name,—
Life's iron heart, even Love's Fatality.”

page: [7]

Hope Overtaken.

I deemed thy garments, O my Hope, were grey,
So far I viewed thee. Now the space between
Is passed at length; and garmented in green
Even as in days of yore thou standst to-day.
Ah God! and but for lingering dull dismay,
On all that road our footsteps erst had been
Even thus commingled, and our shadows seen
Blent on the hedgerows and the water-way.

O Hope of mine whose eyes are living love,
10 No eyes but hers,—O Love and Hope the same!—
Lean close to me, for now the sinking sun
That warmed our feet scarce gilds our hair above.
O hers thy lips and very hers thy name!
Alas, cling round me, for the day is done!

page: [8]

My Lady's Gifts.

High grace, the dower of queens; and therewithal
Some wood-born wonder's sweet simplicity;
A glance like water brimming with the sky
Or hyacinth-light where forest-shadows fall;
Such thrilling pallor of cheek as doth enthral
The heart; a mouth whose passionate forms imply
All music and all silence held thereby;
Deep locks, the brow's embowering coronal;
A round reared neck, meet column of Love's shrine,
10 To cling to when the heart takes sanctuary;
Hands which for ever at Love's bidding be,
And soft-stirred feet still answering to his sign:—
These are her gifts, as tongue may tell them o'er.
Breathe low her name, my soul; for that saith more.

page: [9]

Genius in Beauty.

Beauty like hers is genius. Not the call
Of Homer's or of Dante's heart sublime,—
Not Michael's hand furrowing the zones of time,—
Is more with compassed mysteries musical;
Nay, not in Spring's or Summer's sweet footfall
More gathered gifts exuberant Life bequeaths
Than doth this sovereign face, whose love-spell breathes
Even from its shadowed contour on the wall.

As many men are poets in their youth,
10 But for one sweet-strung soul the wires prolong
Even through all change the indomitable song;
So in likewise the envenomed years, whose tooth
Rends shallower grace with ruin's worst unruth,
Upon this beauty's power shall wreak no wrong.

page: [10]

Love's Pageant.

What dawn-pulse at the heart of heaven, or last
Incarnate flower of culminating day,—
What marshalled marvels on the skirts of May,
Or song full-quired, sweet June's encomiast;
What glory of change by nature's hand amassed
Can vie with all those moods of varying grace
Which o'er one loveliest woman's form and face
Within this hour, within this room, have passed?

Love's very vesture and elect disguise
10 Was each fine movement,—wonder new-begot
Of lily or swan or swan-stemmed galiot;
Joy to his sight who now the sadlier sighs,
Parted again; and sorrow yet for eyes
Unborn, that read these words and saw her not.

page: [11]

Between Kisses.

O lovely, loving, and beloved love;
Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes,
Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise,
Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above
All modulation of the deep-bowered dove,
Is like a hand laid softly on the soul;
Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control
Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:—

What word can answer to thy word,—what gaze
10 To thine, which thus absorbs within its sphere
My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there
Grey-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays?
What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove,
O lovely, loving, and beloved love?

page: [12]

Threefold Homage.

Was I most born to paint your soverign face,
Or most to sing it, or most to love it, dear?
Full sweet the hope that unborn eye and ear
Through me may guess the secret of your grace.
Yet ah! 'neath every picture might I trace,
And write beside each song, — “Let none think here
To breathe indeed this beauty's atmosphere,
To apprehend this body and soul's embrace.”

Faint shadow of you at best I weave; except
10That innermost image all unseen, which still
Proves me at heart your beauty's crowned adept.
Yet was this nought, our hope's high day to fill, —
That o'er us, while we kissed, with answering thrill,
Two Muses held Love's hands, and smiled, and wept?

page: [13]

The Dark Glass.

Not I myself know all my love for thee:
How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh
To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday?
Shall birth, and death, and all dark voids that be
As doors and windows bared to some loud sea,
Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray;
And shall my sense pierce love,—the last relay
And ultimate outpost of eternity?

Lo! what am I to Love, the Lord of all?
10 One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand,—
One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand.
Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call
And veriest touch of powers primordial
That any hour-girt life may understand.

page: [14]

Love's Compass.

Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are;
A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar
Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon;
Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone;
Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar,
Being of its furthest fires oracular;—
The evident heart of all life sown and mown.

Even such Love is; and is not thy name Love?
10 Yea, by thy hand the Love-god rends apart
All gathering clouds of Night's ambiguous art;
Flings them far down, and sets thine eyes above;
And simply, as some gage of flower or glove,
Stakes with a smile the world against thy heart.

page: [15]

Lovelight.

What other woman could be loved like you,
Or how of you should love possess his fill?
After the fulness of all rapture, still,—
As at the end of some deep avenue
A tender glamour of day,—there comes to view
Far in your eyes a yet more hungering thrill,—
Such fire as Love's soul-winnowing hands distil
Even from his inmost ark of light and dew.

And as the traveller triumphs with the sun,
10 Glorying in heat's mid-height, yet startide brings
Wonder new-born, and still fresh transport springs
From limpid lambent hours of day begun;—
Even so, within your arms, your soul doth move
My soul with changeful light of infinite love.

page: [16]

Love-Measure.

Not by one measure may'st thou mete our love;
For how should I be loved as I love thee?—
I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely
All gifts that with thy queenship best behove;—
Thou, throned in every heart's elect alcove,
And crowned with garlands culled from every tree,
Which for no head but thine, by Love's decree,
All beauties and all mysteries interwove.

But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke:—
10“Then only” (sayst thou) “could I love thee less,
When thou couldst doubt my love's equality.”
Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look,—
Thy heart's transcendence, not my heart's excess,—
Then more a thousandfold thou lov'st than I.

page: [17]

Heart's Haven.

Sometimes she is a child within mine arms,
Cowering beneath dark wings that love must chase;
With still tears showering and averted face,
Inexplicably filled with faint alarms:
And oft from mine own spirit's hurtling harms
I crave the refuge of her deep embrace,—
Against all ill the fortified strong place
And sweet reserve of sovereign countercharms.

And Love, our light at night and shade at noon,
10 Lulls me to rest with songs, and turns away
All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day.
Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune;
And as soft waters warble to the moon,
Our answering kisses chime one roundelay.

page: [18]

Without Her.

What of her glass without her? The blank grey
There where the pool is blind of the moon's face.
Her dress without her? The tossed empty space
Of cloud-rack whence the moon has passed away.
Her paths without her? Day's appointed sway
Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place
Without her? Tears, ah me! for love's good grace,
And cold forgetfulness of night or day.

What of the heart without her? Nay, poor heart,
10 Of thee what word remains ere speech be still?
A wayfarer by barren ways and chill,
Steep ways and weary, without her thou art,
Where the long cloud, the long wood's counterpart,
Sheds doubled darkness on the labouring hill.

page: [19]

Love's Antiphony.

“I love you, sweet: how can you ever learn
How much I love you?” “You I love even so,
And so I learn it.” “Sweet, you cannot know
How fair you are.” “If fair enough to earn
Your love, so much is all my love's concern.”
“My love grows hourly, sweet.” “Mine too doth grow;
Yet love seemed full so many hours ago.”
Thus lovers speak, till kisses claim their turn.

Shame on his heart to whom such words as these
10Seem not enough of speech the whole day long,
Hour after hour, remote from the world's throng,
Work, friendship, fame, all life's confederate pleas,—
What while Love breathes in sighs and silences
Through two blent souls one rapturous undersong.

page: [20]

The Lovers' Walk.

Sweet twining hedgeflowers wind-stirred in no wise
On this June day; and hand that clings in hand:—
Still glades; and meeting faces scarcely fann'd:—
An osier-odoured stream that draws the skies
Deep to its heart; and mirrored eyes in eyes:—
Fresh hourly wonder o'er the Summer land
Of light and cloud; and two souls softly spann'd
With one o'erarching heaven of smiles and sighs:—

Even such their path, whose bodies lean unto
10 Each other's visible sweetness amorously,—
Whose passionate hearts lean by Love's high decree
Together on his heart for ever true,
As the white-foaming firmamental blue
Rests on the blue line of a foamless sea.

page: [21]

The Moonstar.

Lady, I thank thee for thy loveliness,
Because my lady is more lovely still.
Glorying I gaze, and yield with glad goodwill
To thee thy tribute; by whose sweet-spun dress
Of delicate life Love labours to assess
My lady's absolute queendom; saying, “Lo!
How high this beauty is, which yet doth show
But as that beauty's sovereign votaress.”

Lady, I saw thee with her, side by side;
10 And as, when night's fair fires their queen surround,
An emulous star too near the moon will ride,—
Even so thy rays within her luminous bound
Were traced no more; and by the light so drown'd,
Lady, not thou but she was glorified.

page: [22]

Love and Hope.

Kiss once again. Full many a withered year
Whirled past us, eddying to its chill doomsday;
And clasped together where the blown leaves lay,
We long have knelt and wept full many a tear.
Yet lo! one hour at last, the Spring's compeer,
Flutes softly to us from some green byway:
Those years, those tears are dead, but only they:
Kiss once again, my love; for we are here.

Cling heart to heart; nor of this hour demand
10 Whether in very truth, when we are dead,
Our hearts shall wake to know Love's golden head
Sole sunshine of the imperishable land;
Or but discern, through night's unfeatured scope,
Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope.

page: [23]

At Last.

Fate claimed hard toll from Love, and did not spare:
Are the dues paid, and is all Love's at last?
Cling round me, sacred sweetness,—hold me fast,—
Oh! as I kneel, enfold mine eyes even there
Within thy breast; and to Love's deepest lair
Of memory bid thy soul with mine retreat
And let our past years and our future meet
In the warm darkness underneath thine hair.

Say once for all: “Me Love accepts, and thee:
10Nor takes he other count of bygone years
Not his, than do the affranchised earth and sea
Of hours wherein the unyoked inordinate spheres
Hurtled tumultuous round Time's ringing ears
Ere yet one word gave light to victory.

page: [24]

Cloud and Wind.

Love, should I fear death most for you or me?
Yet if you die, can I not follow you,
Forcing the straits of change? Alas! but who
Shall wrest a bond from night's inveteracy,
Ere yet my hazardous soul put forth, to be
Her warrant against all her haste might rue?—
Ah! in your eyes so reached what dumb adieu,
What unsunned gyres of waste eternity?

And if I die the first, shall death be then
10 A lampless watchtower whence I see you weep?—
Or (woe is me!) a bed wherein my sleep
Ne'er notes (as death's dear cup at last you drain,)
The hour when you too learn that all is vain
And that Hope sows what Love shall never reap?

page: [25]

Spring Tribute.

On this sweet bank your head thrice sweet and dear
I lay, and spread your hair on either side,
And see the newborn woodflowers bashful-eyed
Look through the rippling tresses here and there.
On these debateable borders of the year
Spring's foot half falters; scarce her glance may know
The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow;
And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear.

But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day;
10 So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss
Creep, as the Spring now thrills through every spray,
Up your warm throat to your warm lips: for this
Is even the hour of Love's sworn suitservice,
With whom cold hearts are counted castaway.

page: [26]

Venus Victrix.

Could Juno's self more heavenly presence wear
Than thou, 'mid other ladies throned in grace?—
Or Pallas, when thou bendst with soul-stilled face
O'er poet's page deep-shadowed in thy hair?
Dost thou than Venus seem less heavenly fair,
When from the sea of love's insatiate bliss
Thy breast is reared, to yield to the last kiss
Thy sweet lips like the last wave murmuring there?

Before such triune loveliness divine
10 Awestruck I ask, which goddess here most claims
The prize that, howsoe'er adjudged, is thine?
Then Love breathes low the sweetest of thy names;
And Venus Victrix to mine arms doth bring
Herself, the Helen of her guerdoning.

page: [27]

The Love-Lamp.

Sometimes I fain would find in thee some fault,
That I might love thee still in spite of it:
Yet how should our Lord Love curtail one whit
Thy perfect praise whom most he would exalt?
Alas! he can but make my heart's low vault
Even in men's sight unworthier, being lit
By thee, who thereby showst more exquisite
Like fiery chrysoprase in deep basalt.

Yet will I nowise shrink; but at Love's shrine
10 Myself within the beams his brow doth dart
Will set the flashing jewel of thy heart
In that dull chamber where it deigns to shine:
For lo! in honour of thine excellencies
My heart takes pride to show how poor it is.

page: [28]

Disìo e Compenso.

(Due Sonetti)

O bocca che nell' ora del disìo
Tante volte guardai e tenni pace,—
Che i tanti spirti dell' occio tenace
Baciar tutt' ora, e mai il labbro mio!—
Ahi da te, bocca, che piacer vogl' io,
O che speranza che non sia fallace?
Qual tuo sorriso, dimmi sè ti piace,
E quai parole, per l'amor di Dio?

Deh povera speranza! e come vuoi
10Raggiungere il piacer, con ali avorte,
Alle gemelle sorridenti porte?
Ogni parola che verebbe poi
Più amorosa ahi più sarìa per noi
Radice del silenzio della morte!

page: [29]

O bocca che nell' ora del compenso
Tante volte baciai, e tante volte
Sentii da te, con mille voti accolte,
Quella parola d'immortal consenso:—
Deh possa dei tuoi baci il sacro incenso
Ravvolger sempre in nuvole più folte
Le antiche tante omai larve sepolte,
Empiendo il ciel del nostro amore immenso!

Vieni, beata bocca, O vieni ancora!
10Lungi pensando a te, l'amore disìa
Dolce rugiada in tua rosata via.
Non sei tu quella in cui ora ed ogn' ora
Io vivo sol,— cui sol nell' alma mia
Mercede invita Amore, e Amore adora?

page: [30]

Parted Presence.

Your eyes are afar to-day,
Yet, love, look now in mine eyes.
Two hearts sent forth may despise
All dead things by the way.
All between is decay,
Dead hours and this hour that dies.
O love, look deep in mine eyes!

Your hands to-day are not here,
Yet lay them, love, in my hands.
10 The hourglass sheds its sands
All day for the dead hours' bier;
But now, as two hearts draw near,
This hour like a flower expands.
O love, your hands in my hands!

To-day your lips are afar,
Yet press my lips to them, love!
Around, beneath, and above,
Is frost to bind and to bar;
But where I am and you are,
20 Desire and the fire thereof.
O kiss me, kiss me, my love!

page: [31]

Your heart is never away,
But ever with mine, for ever,
For ever without endeavour,
To-morrow, love, as to-day;
Two blent hearts never astray,
Two souls no power may sever,
Together, O my love, for ever!

page: [32]

The Water Willow.

Leaves and rain and the days of the year,
( Water-willow and wellaway)
All these fall, and my soul gives ear,
And she is hence who once was here.
( With a wind blown night and day.)

Ah! but now, for a secret sign,
( The willow's wan & the water white,)
In the held breath of the day's decline
Her very lips seem pressed to mine.
10 ( With a wind blown day & night.)

O love, of my death my life is fain,
( The willows wave on the waterway,)
Your mouth and mine are cold in the rain,
But warm they'll be when they meet again.
( With a wind blown night and day.)

Mists are heaved and cover the sky,
( The willows wail in the waning light,)
O part your lips, leave space for a sigh,—
They seal my soul, I cannot die.
20 ( With a wind blown day and night.)

page: [33]

Leaves and rain and the days of the year,
( Water-willow and wellaway,)
All still fall, and I still give ear,
And she is hence, and I am here.
( With a wind blown night and day.)

page: [34]

Between Meetings.

Two separate divided silences,
Which, brought together, would find loving voice;
Two glances which together would rejoice
In love, now lost like stars beyond the trees;
Two hands apart whose touch alone gives ease;
Two mouths which, as two fire-flakes of one flame,
Would, meeting in one kiss, be made the same;
Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas:—

Such are we now; yet may our hope forecast
10 Haply one hour again, when on this stream
Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam:
An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,—
Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last,
Faint as dead flowers, the attenuated dream.

page: [35]

Transcribed Note (page [35]):

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page: [36]

Transcribed Note (page [36]):

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Manuscript Addition: 81 leaves

Editorial Description: Someone, probably from the Bodleian Library, has written "81 leaves" on this page.

page: [1a]

Note: The following poems are copied by DGR from the back of the notebook toward the front. DGR clearly turned the book over and around and treated what was the end of the book (from the point of view of the previous section) as the beginning of another book or group of poems. The sequence is here given as they were copied by DGR, the pages progressing from the right to the left.

The Cloud Confines.