---

• Dear Williams, let loud greeting cheer thee
• Unto us in health: but I fear me
• Thou hast been ill; I have much sorrowed
• To hear from thee that thy cool forehead
• Hath been heated in the clear country,
• Where I thought—aye, even on Sunday,
• As to-day, (on Monday), I received
• Your letter—that there man never grieved,
• And therefore (this joy) never sickened;
• 10That, down there, the light never thickened
• Before you so painfully and dull,
• Or that words spoke sounded musical
• As they do in this infernal town,
• Where the sense getteth up and goeth down
• And we are not a bit the better.
• By this letter the sun's our debtor
page: [1v]  
• Much happiness from brave glaring light
• Shining clearly upon nature bright;
• We do look upon it blinking here,
• 20And well know it shineth very dear
• Upon white swift clouds and skies clear
• Where with distance hazily appear
• Rows of full trees in long perspective
• And deep water quietly reflective
• Of fleecy clouds and familiar weeds
• By some path which to some dark wood leads
• That reacheth unto the barren heath
• Where the poor man's beasts with their sharp teeth
• Make but a sorry meal; gay fields
• 30Beside of brown corn red poppy yields
• A moral unto him who reapeth,—
• That with dull life tempting death creepeth,
• Which urgeth with its rich color red
• So rest our souls with the woeless dead.
• Things of sinfulness are thus akin,
• Flickering lovelily to make us sin;
page: [2]  
• But thy love there, God, we nigh us see,
• Which kindles our good thoughts piously
• And teacheth to subdue all passion,
• 40While the clear sun in heavenly fashion
• Spreadeth color from our very feet
• To the hills that with the heavens meet,
• And up to the zenith of deep blue,
• Which is as dark as when gem-stars do
• Crown this great earth in September night.
• Stars are wholly hid in bright daylight;
• So the sea, not one whit enhanced,
• Sucketh from the great avalanched
• Old Alp his ever cold thawing tears
• 50And continual sweat the heat bears
• To the absorbing ocean; so the
• Sun with obscuring light drinks wholly
• From our satiated eyes great stars
• And greater systems; so love debars
• All meaner sensualities, all
• Graver considerations; souls fall
page: [2v]  
• By love, but of it show little heed;
• No care when prospects blighten, hopes bleed,
• Or friends frighten now of vows broken;
• 60No thought of aught but love-words spoken,
• But love-token, but enchanting eyes,
• Enticing laugh, and inviting sighs:
• Then cometh the undertone of bliss
• When fair arms and the feverish kiss
• Drive to perdition and to hell,
• And they grieve least thou hast loved too well.

• Oh! these love-delights are a new sin:
• 'Tis a crime since Nicholas Poussin
• To live all bacchanted in the wood:
• 70Our farm-fathers never understood
• That, to be good, they should lay aside
• All passion, or that but the green-dyed
• Shade from the close trees should be to them
• More shame than the robe with many a gem
• Embroidered: deemed they that the world raw
page: [3]  
• Would ever be hushed from what they saw
• Into the state it now is? Oh nay;
• For they knew well how jolly all day
• Must young Bacchus have been where he lay
• 80'Neath the cypress that fanned the ray
• Of the hot sun away: 'twas a treat
• When the wind singèd soft in the heat,
• And the breath of the hot hills did make
• The low distance dance, and when the shade
• Of high things was shortened where he laid
• Him down in the cool but an hour ago:—
• Then 'twas closely shaded: to and fro
• How doth the shade of circling swallows
• Cross him as one the other follows;
• 90But farther high is a spot of dark;
• 'Tis the shrill and loudly singing lark:
• He is the reporter of our joys
• To God, sentinel wise with great noise
• Harmoniously chorusing our hymns
• And culling from where joy o'erbrims,—
page: [3v]  
• But first kindling,—all gladdening sounds;
• The giggling streams and the splashing bounds
• Of the sun-basking trout teach verily
• Music to him,—as doth the bee;
• 100Even the chirping green grasshopper
• Adds to the shout of the wild copper
• Colored Satyrs; the laughs of faunlings
• Young chorus melodiously, so doth the ring
• Of Bacchantes' clear-noted voices,
• And the loud halloa of one who tosses
• The new torn hay o'er the victimed faun,
• With the loud blast of the hunting horn,
• Which he heareth at his high station
• And poureth to God in an oration
• 110Of clear melodies unending,
• Quicker gleaned than spending,
• To our senses lending
• A sense of rending,
• With flight unbending,
• Nor downward tending
• To astonied nation.
page: [4]  
• Oh aye: these joys are for ever gone
• And the drinking-horn is beheld with scorn;
• Man must think passionless of women,
• 120And the deep cup of care is brimming
• Drowsingly; and man paineth his brow
• With thoughts of the coming, and thinketh how
• He shall keep madness from the morrow,
• And pondereth to keep from sorrow
• Them he dearly loveth: oh to think,
• As all have, that they but shake the brink
• That abysseth down reason's precipice,
• The fear of which confuseth and giddyeth
• Till they topple headlong. For the end!
• 130Oh for the end! It must come: God will lend
• Us some relief, some time for resting
• Quietly, when their will be no breasting
• With unanxious fools.——
• I had written
• To here, when the seat on which I had sitten
• Got hard; so I left and went to bed.
page: [4v]  
• Next morning better, to myself said:
• “What ailed thee last night? 'Twas not porter,
• 'Twas not gin, not rum, wine, nor water;
• 140Perhaps 'twas the rain.” (I, you must know
• Had got wet, and, in getting dry,
• Had grown prosaic and dull). “This again
• Must not be done; never write after rain,
• While still wet: fool, have you still to find
• A man writes better when he hath dined
• Well? he thinks much more reasonable,
• Certainly much more seasonable,—
• To a convalescent man, at least:
• Then again, craniums are much clearer
• 150And we are all very much nearer
• To a state of. . . . .let me see. . .content,—
• Content—yes, that is the word I meant—
• Than before, or long after, dinner;
• If very long, why, we get much thinner
• And write devilish ugly things
• About dead kings, howlings, black birds' wings,
page: [5]  
• Mad brains et caetera.” But, as good dinners
• Are not had by us hungry sinners
• Every day, I waited till meat
• 160And cold pie should be a rich surfeit
• To my pining muse; so I long time
• Waited for this desirable rhyme,
• But found the happy Muse was as coy
• As the dinner I was to enjoy:
• However, I one day felt jolly;
• So I deemed I should not write melancholy
• If I set to work at once: I felt
• Quite pregnant, thought that I should have dealt
• Out to me some of the rich conceits
• 170Wherewith our blue-eyed grave Pallas beats
• Momus, to make him laugh him sore,
• Or some rich puns wherewith I would bore
• You. So, to begin , I coughed; then frowned;
• Put fingers to my hair, and crowned
• Myself with its divided locks;
• Squared my elbow; gave my forehead knocks;
page: [5v]  
• Tucked up my sleeves; then I bit my nails;
• (I hear such strategem never fails).
• I wrote me then what has delightened
• 180Me ever since by its own brightened
• Gaiety, such as has often lightened
• The horrors of a man thus frightened.
• I began thus lively:— “Here in town
• Ah the green grass is brown, and the brown
• Faces get pale. Alas! we're entombed;
• Fellows and friends most fearfully doomed
• To reach wants which the flesh doth crave
• By the soul's struggling: this God gave
• As a curse; and verily 'tis one
• 190Which presseth upon him in London
• Who chaseth high desires; it chaineth
• Him to each man who with care gaineth
• The fulsome feedings of this rich earth,
• Who treateth thought with contempt and mirth.”
• Thus was the mighty verse continued,
• Every line by some great wrong sinewed.—
page: [6]  
• But thou wouldst be told all of friends dear;
• And one has gone mad I know thou'lt fear
• By the way he writes;— thou hast reasons;
• 200But know madness goeth by seasons;
• And, by next season, I will retrieve
• Myself from this suspicion, relieve
• You from your fears; I know how difficult,
• If from this epistle they result.
• Well, I'll of the folio tell: it flags
• Considerably; perhaps it drags
• To the time when the dark sponge given
• To the parched lips helpeth the heaven-
• ly greeting given unto the twenty
• 210And four Elders; but now let's see
• 'Bout the Cyclographic Society.
• Burchett hath suddenly us foorsook;
• Dennis is absent; so is E. Brook;
• The folio last came from Millais,
• And yet the old sketch is not away;
• But this night he will bring one instead
page: [6v]  
• Of King Lear rising from his mad bed.
• There is the design you must have seen
• Of the red-haired man by our friend Green;
• 220And the new design of Mr. Keene
• Is but another fine christening.

• We should be amazing dull, you see,
• If it was not for Gabriel Rossetti
• And Collinson. The etched design
• By G. C. R. is immensely fine.
• Margaret at Mass, from Göthe's Faust,
• Thinks of her mother and brother lost
• Thro' her sinning; then the Evil Spirit
• Taunteth with the virtue she did inherit
• 230And presseth full heavily into her
• Too conscious heart that it is not pure,
• And that the now chaunting day of wrath
• Chaunteth threateningly and brings forth
• Fearful promises. Me to describe
• It is ridiculous. I would bribe
page: [7]  
• The devil with my soul if he could
• Give me power to do that which would
• Nerve so to look at as Margaret
• Tortured and writhing with deep regret.
• 240Collinson sends a “Novitiate”:
• Young and pure is she; by her do fret
• The pleasures of the world; she careth
• Not, but, full of her great Lord, sweareth
• To forsake such sinful vanities
• And all other frail humanities.

• Clifton sends a damned aspiration
• Which certainly deserves damnation:
• 'Tis done in black lead, that well known style
• Which, when babes, we all stumped at a while,
• 250With double h's, and single b
• And washes of black ink 1, 2, 3.
• This is all about our Society.

• When you're up, come to 7 Cleveland Street.
page: [7v]  
• This is the sole place that you will meet
• Me; I have taken a studio there;
• Rossetti will also have a share.

W. H. Hunt

August 1848.