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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Ashley 3847 (with a copy of “At Last” and fragments of “The White Ship”)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1869? 1871? 1880-1881?
Type of Manuscript: corrected fair copy
Scribe: DGR

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

Image of page [1] page: [1]
Manuscript Addition: unswayed obstreporous/ unthroned vociferous
Editorial Description: Two variants for "unyoked inordinate" in line 12 are given at the foot of the manuscript.
Manuscript Addition: (H of L)
Editorial Description: DGR's note indicating he intended to include the sonnet in the 1881 version of “The House of Life”
Manuscript Addition: unprinted
Editorial Description: Note written possibly by DGR at the bottom of the page.
more about At Last
At Last (H of L)
  • 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;
  • Here as I kneel,—oh have me in thy care;
  • Now while
    Added TextOh! as I kneel, enfold mine eyes even there
  • And thus embraced, even Against thy [?] and 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 & sea
  • Of hours while yet wherein the unyoked inordinate spheres
  • Hurtled tumultuous round Time's ringing ears
  • Ere that yet one word gave light to victory.”
Image of page [2] page: [2]
more about The White Ship
The Wreck of the White Ship
  • By none but me can the tale be told,—
  • ( Lands are ruled swayed by a King on a throne .)
  • The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.
  • ( The sea hath no King but God alone.)
  • Where lands were none 'neath the black dark sea-sky,
  • We told our names, that man & I.
  • O I am Gilbert de l'Aigle hight,
  • And son I am to a belted knight.
  • And I am Berold, the butcher's son,
  • 10Who slays the beasts in Rouen town.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: ashley3847.rad.xml