DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
Born May 12, 1828. | Died April 9, 1882.
There was a particular metre much affected by this great artist and poet, of which perhaps the best example to be found is in his weird “Sister Helen,” which has been frequently parodied. It commences thus:—
“Why did you melt your waxen man,
Sister Helen?
To-day is the third since you began.”
“The time was long, yet the time ran,
Little brother.”
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!)
“But if you have done your work aright,
Sister Helen,
You’ll let me play, for you said I might.”
“Be very still in your play to-night,
Little brother.”
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
Third night, to-night, between Hell and Heaven!)
“Oh, the waxen knave was plump to-day,
Sister Helen;
How like dead folk he has dropped away!”
“Nay now, of the dead what can you say,
Little brother?”
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?)
* * * * *
“Ah! what white thing at the door has cross’d,
Sister Helen?
Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?”
“A soul that’s lost as mine is lost,
Little brother!”
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)
This, and other poems by Rossetti, such as Eden Bower, and Troy Town, only revived a very old fashion—the ballad with a refrain or burden.
But when once it was revived so many indifferent poets attempted to utter their little insipidities in the ballad style, that the parodists soon caught the infection. One gentleman furbished up a tremendous ballad which resembled nothing so much as the cry of a costermonger, for its burden, oft repeated, was—
“Apple, and orange, and nectarine,”
whilst one of the evening papers published the following satire on Rossetti’s style:—
After Dilettante Concetti.
“Why do you wear your hair like a man,
Sister Helen?
This week is the third since you began.”
“I’m writing a ballad; be still if you can,
Little brother,
(O Mother Carey, mother!
What chickens are these between sea and heaven?”)
“But why does your figure appear so lean,
Sister Helen?
And why do you dress in sage sage, green?”
“Children should never be heard, if seen,
Little brother!
(O Mother Carey, mother!
What fowls are a-wing in the stormy heaven!”
“But why is your face so yellowy white,
Sister Helen?
And why are your skirts so funnily tight?”
“Be quiet you torment, or how can I write,
Little brother?
(O Mother Carey, mother!
How gathers thy train to the sea from the heaven.”)
“And who’s Mother Carey, and what is her train,
Sister Helen?
And why do you call her again and again?”
“You troublesome boy, why that’s the refrain,
Little brother!
O Mother Carey, mother!
What work is toward in the startled heaven?”)
“And what’s a refrain? What a curious word,
Sister Helen;
Is the ballad you’re writing about a sea-bird?”
“Not at all! why should it be? Don’t be absurd,
Little brother.
(O Mother Carey, mother!
Thy brood flies lower as lowers the heaven.)”
(A big brother speaketh:)
“The refrain you’ve studied a meaning had,
Sister Helen!
It gave strange force to a weird ballàd.
But refrains have become a ridiculous ‘fad,’
Little brother.
And Mother Carey, mother,
Has a bearing on nothing in earth or heaven.”
* * * * *
For the remainder of this exquisite parody, readers are referred to Mr. H. D. Traill’s Recaptured Rhymes (London, W, Blackwood & Sons, 1882), in which work it was republished.
Eve.
(An Imitation.)
“Dasz ich genossen des Wissens Frucht,
Das kannst du nicht mehr aendern.”—[H. Heine.]
The serpent tempted thee to shame,
Mother Eve.
God’s direst vengeance on thee came,
Mother Eve.
And never may we hope to win
That golden garden close hedged in
From toil and tempest, strife and sin,
Mother Eve.
Before thy wondering, wakened eyes,
Mother Eve.
Clashed shut the gates of Paradise,
Mother Eve.
Thy wandering feet, thy hands were torn,
By briar, wayside weed and thorn,
Thy babes in anguish great were born,
Mother Eve.
And yet God’s vengeance knew no stay,
Mother Eve.
Thy first-born did his brother slay,
Mother Eve.
Died not thy heart for woe and dread,
When Abel in thine arms lay dead,
And Cain red-handed turned and fled,
Mother Eve?
Methinks I hear thee murmur “Nay,”
Mother Eve.
“Evil and bitter was my day,”
Mother Eve.
“Evil and full of pain, but still
I am Thy judge—work all Thy will—
I judge Thee knowing good from ill.”
Mother Eve.
“I stretched mine hand unto Thy tree—”
Mother Eve.
“Not as the sightless beasts are we—”
Mother Eve.
“The curse has fallen—let it bide—
I and my children open-eyed
Know Thee, and judge, whate’er betide,”
Mother Eve.
Mabel Peacock.
Detroit Free Press, December 5, 1885.
The Poets at Tea.
Rossetti, who took six cups of it.
The lilies lie in my lady’s bower,
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost),
They faintly droop for a little hour;
My lady’s head droops like a flower.
She took the porcelain in her hand,
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost),
She poured; I drank at her command;
Drank deep, and now-you understand!
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost).
* * * * *
The Cambridge Fortnightly. February, 1888.
A Twilight Fantasy.
A woman stood at a garden gate
(Sing hey, for the distant spreading sail!)
Sing hey, for the dog that hurried by
With a kettle tied to his tail.
My goodman skurried adown the road.
(Sing hey, for the joyous drinking bout!)
And after the ochre cur he sped
With many a gruesome shout.
“Now why this haste, good neighbour?” she cried;
“Why after the dog of the umber tint?”
But, waking the echoes with yells, he sped
Through the twilight’s gleam and glint.
A smug-face lad looked over the fence
(Sing hey, where the birdlings sing and chirp,)
“Why laughest, good mother!” “I laugh,” said she,
“To see yon ecru purp.”
A smile then smilèd the smug-faced lad.
(Sing lack-a-day, for the sunset red,)
“Then laugh no more, good gossip, because
The kettle is your’n,” he said.
The Shooting Times. February 11, 1887.
The Laundress and the Laidy.
All on a sofa fair Ada lay,
(O, for a brandy and soda, she sighed),
It was four in the afternoon, and gay
Was the outside world, but Ada must stay
In her room, and thus she cried,
“Could I but join the happy throng.”
(And O, for a brandy and soda she sighed),
“That under my windows pass along
To Short’s, or to Finch’s, I’d soon be gone,
Or to the Inventions glide.”
She took down an “afternoon tea-book” to read,
(O, for a brandy and soda she sighed),
But it interested her little indeed,
Such books are tame if you haven’t “teaed.”
And no one sat by her side.
She went to the window and gazed at the sky,
(O, for a brandy and soda she sighed),
Then she saw her particular mash pass by,
To attract his attention did she try,
But in vain, tho’ hard she tried.
Her chloral bottle she took in her hand,
(O, for a brandy and soda she sighed),
“To sleep till the evening will be grand;”
And she slept through the strains of a German band,
Which was playing in all its pride.
“Why didn’t she go for a stroll?” you say,
But, reader, I beg you pause;
Her friends on a visit were all away,
And her laundress forgot to send home that day
Her petticoats, stockings,
and pockethandkerchiefs.
The Sporting Times. June 20, 1885.
The same paper, for May 23, 1885, contained another very funny parody of Rossetti; but unfortunately it was too suggestive to bear republication here.
It was reserved, however, for that prince of Parodists, Charles S. Calverley, to make the ballad with a refrain supremely ridiculous:—
The auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her apron’d knees.
The piper he piped on the hill-top high,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
Till the cow said “I die,” and the goose ask’d “Why?”
And the dog said nothing, but search’d for fleas.
The farmer he strode through the square farm-yard;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard—
The connexion of which with the plot one sees.
The farmer’s daughter hath frank blue eyes;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.
The farmer’s daughter hath ripe red lips;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.
The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And I met with a ballad, I can’t say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these.
In the second part of this pathetic composition the poet thus describes the melancholy sequel:—
She sat with her hands ’neath her burning cheeks,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;
Then she follow’d him out o’er the misty leas.
Her sheep follow’d her, as their tails did them,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And this song is consider’d a perfect gem,
And as to the meaning, it’s what you please.
When Mr. Calverley composed this burlesque Ballad (which is to be found in full in his Fly Leaves, published by G. Bell & Sons), it is probable that he was thinking of one by Mr. Morris, entitled “Two Red Roses across the Moon” commencing “There was a lady liv’d in a hall,” and ending with the refrain which forms the title.
Having once shown how it could be done, other comic writers followed suit, and the burlesque ballads in this style are almost too numerous to be quoted.
——:o:——
You, I, and the Post.
You,—the British Public; I,—W. E. G. The Post—G. P. O.
A statesman sits at Hawarden gate,
(Paper and pens and a bottle of ink.)
A stalwart man with a shapely pate,
And brains to spare, as you rightly think.
The live-long day he’s been hacking down trees,
(Paper and pens and two bottles of ink.)
Toughish work, yet he does it with ease,
Nor e’en doth, as Milton would phrase it, “swink.”
Who is’t approacheth? ha! ha! The post!
(Paper and pens and a pint of ink.)
Of letters and post-cards bearing a host—
Beneath the load he seems ready to sink.
The Statesman opens and reads them all,
(Paper and pens and a quart of ink.)
Quoth he, “I’ll answer them great and small,
This very night ere I sleep a wink.”
In he strides to his big bureau,
(Paper and pens and a gallon of ink.)
And answers fourscore letters or so—
(Fourscore’s the minimum number, I think);
Some answered by note, and some by card,
(Paper and pens and a barrel of ink.)
But when the question’s uncommonly hard,
The point of the query he’ll deftly shrink.
Oh, the postman puffs, and the postman swears,
(Paper and pens and a sheet of stamps.)
At the load of letters and cards he bears
To Hawarden gate in his daily tramps.
Oh, you who of letters and answers are fond,
(Paper and pens and a grey goose quill.)
Write to Hawarden, there beyond—
And an answer you’ll get from the People’s Will!
Hubert John de Burgh.
(This talented young author died in 1877, at the early age of thirty-two. The above parody originally appeared in Yorick, to accompany a cartoon by Harry Furniss.)
As recently as October 20, 1888, Punch had a similar parody entitled
Agriculture’s Latest Rôle.
(A Bucolic Ballad, with a Borrowed Refrain, Dedicated to the British Dairy Farmers’ Association,)
“Where are you going to, my pretty Maid?”
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
“I’m going a-milking, Sir;” she said;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
“For times are bad, and the farm don’t pay.
’Tis Pasture v. Arable so men say.
If still I’d be prosperous this is the way.
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
“I’m tired of corn-growing that brings little cash,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
The old business of Ceres seems going to smash.
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
Free Trade and the Yankee have finished her clean.
From furrow and sheaf there seems little to glean,
From ploughed land to pasture I’m changing the scene.
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
“I hope you’ll allow I look fetching like this,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
A Dairymaid’s dress suits me sweetly, I wis.
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
Just twig my short petticoats, look at my pail!
The bards are all ready a Milkmaid to hail!
I mean making prettiness pay,—shall I fail?
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
“You’ve been to the Dairy Show, Sir, have you not?
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
Those churners competitive were a sweet lot.
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)
Miss Holmes, and Miss Keel, and Miss Barron, who won,
Seemed not a bit fagged when the business was done.
I’m sure Butter-making looks capital fun.
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese!)”
* * * * *
A Christmas Wail.
(Not by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)
On Christmas day I dined with Brown.
(O the dinner was fine to see!)
I drove to his house, right merrily down
To a western square of London town.
(And I moan and I cry woe’s me!)
We dined off turkey and Christmas beef;
(O the dinner was fine to see!)
My anguish is sore and my comfort brief,
And nought but blue pills can ease my grief,
(As I moan and I cry woe’s me!)
We gorged plum-pudding and hot mince pies,
(O the dinner was fine to see!)
And other nameless atrocities,
The weight of which on my—bosom lies.
(And I moan and I cry woe’s me!)
We drank dry Clicquot and rare old port,
(O the dinner was fine to see!)
And I pledged my host for a right good sort
In bumpers of both, for I never thought
(I should moan and I cry woe’s me!)
* * * * *
But I woke next day with a fearful head,
(O that dinner so fine to see!)
And on my chest is a weight like lead,
And I frequently wish that I were dead,
(And I moan and I cry woe’s me!)
And as for Brown—why the truth to tell—
(O that dinner so fine to see!)
I hate him now with the hate of hell,
Though before I loved him passing well,
(And I moan and I cry woe’s me!)
Truth. December 27, 1883.
One of the most ridiculous features of the so-called Æsthetic movement was, that a number of brainless noodles set to work to write poetry in serious imitation of Swinburne, Rossetti, and Oscar Wilde. The style was a mixture of mediæval Italian and middle English, and the one principle which guided the dolorous singers was, “We must not have any meaning, or, at any rate, the less the better.” “My lady” was addressed in all kinds of rhymes, “Love” was held responsible for legions of complicated woes, green eyes, golden eyes—even orbs “like a cat’s splendid circled eye” were quite in fashion. The recipe for this description of poetry was—Begin with an address to your lady; never mind if you have not one, for that is a mere detail. Represent her as bewitching you with the unutterably weary gaze of her eyes—or eyne—“eyne” is preferable; stick in an old word like “teen” or “drouth” or “wot” or “sooth” or “wearyhead” or “wanhope;” break out with “Lo!” and “Yea!” and “Nay!” and “Ah!” at brief intervals, and be sure to have a weird refrain. This humbug held its own for a while, but a few unsparing satirists dealt with this dreary small-fry of art, and the following, one of the most delightful modern jests was prompted by the school:—
Madonna Mia.
I would I were a cigarette
Between my lady’s lithe sad lips
Where Death, like Love, divinely set,
With exquisite sighs and sips,
Feeds and is fed and is not fain,
And Memory married with Regret,
And Pleasure amorous of red Pain,
In moon-wise musing wax and wane;
That with the bitter sweetness of her breath
I might somewhile remember and forget
(For Life is Love, and Love is Death!)
It was my hap—ah well-a-way—
To burn my little hour away!
I would I were a gold jewèl
To fleck my lady’s soft lean throat,
Where Love, like Death, lies throned to swell
A strange and tremulous note
Of yearning vague and void and vain,
Delight on flame Desire to quell,
And Pleasure fearful of red Pain,
And dreams fall in to sear and stain;
That in the barren blossom of her breath
I might be glad we were not one, but twain
(For Love is Life, and Life is Death!)
And that without me, well-a-way,
She could not choose but pass away.
This masterly balderdash has imposed on many people; and the most comic thing in the world is to see an earnest person endeavouring to discover hidden meanings in it.
“John Bull” (a London newspaper) for November 8, 1879, contained a long article from which only the following brief notes can be quoted:—
Immortal Pictures.
Mr. Rossetti has painted a picture, and in an unguarded moment permitted the Athenæum to describe it in the following language.—[Extract given in full.]
Apropos of the above fragment of art-criticism, a correspondent sends us the following analysis (clipped from a rival journal) of another remarkable picture:—
“It is better to speak the truth at once, and to say that we have in Mr. Symphony Priggins a master as great as the greatest; and in this picture the master-piece of a master; and in this episode of a picture the masterstroke of a master’s master-piece. The sublimity of Buonaroti, the poetic fervour of Raffaelle, the tremulous intensity of Sandro Botticelli, the correggiosity of Correggio have never raised these masters to higher heights than our own Priggins has attained in this transcendent rendering of the Dish running away with the Spoon.
“The artist, like some others of his craft, is, as is known, a poet of no mean pretensions; and he has set forth the inner meaning of his picture in the following lines, which form the motto on its frame:—”
A Ballad of High Endeavour.
Ah night! blind germ of days to be,
Ah me! ah me!
(Sweet Venus, mother!)
What wail of smitten strings hear we?
(Ah me; ah me!
Hey diddle dee!)
Ravished by clouds our Lady Moon,
Ah me! ah me!
(Sweet Venus, mother!)
Sinks swooning in a lady-swoon
(Ah me! ah me!
Dum diddle dee!)
What profits it to rise i’ the dark?
Ah me! ah me!
(Sweet Venus, mother!)
If love but over-soar its mark
(Ah me! ah me!
Hey diddle dee!)
What boots to fall again forlorn?
Ah me! ah me;
(Sweet Venus, mother!)
Scorned by the grinning hound of scorn,
(Ah me! ah me!
Dum diddle dee!)
Art thou not greater who art less?
Ah me! ah me!
(Sweet Venus, mother!)
Low love fulfilled of low success?
(Ah me! ah me!
Hey diddle dee!)
No one we imagine, would have been dull enough to have missed the allegory of Mr. Priggins’ great picture even without such exposition; but many, perhaps, will only feel it after this its setting forth in “perfect music matched with noble words.”
Song by Mr. Joseph Hubert Hillyer.
Art is to me no intellectual fad;
(A goodly balance is fair to see!)
You don’t catch me o’er culture going mad.
(The rarest of letters are £ s. d.!)
As soon as I could paint I set my heart
On making money (else what good is Art?);
In painting show-bills ’twas I made my start.
(O, sweet is the chink of cash to me!)
I found the public vulgar scenes liked best,
(A goodly balance is fair to see!)
And so I painted my great “Crowner’s Quest;”
(The rarest of letters are £ s. d.!)
And when its sordid realism took,
I gave them next my “Fair at Donnybrook.”
And “Tourists up the Rhine with Mr. Cook.”
(O, sweet is the chink of cash to me!)
These made my name, and then the Starch firm, Plums,
(A goodly balance is fair to see!)
To paint them posters gave me lordly sums;
(The rarest of letters are £ s. d.!)
And there was not a hoarding but did bear
(Above my name, writ large,) a dainty pair
Of damsels, who starched collarettes did wear.
(O, sweet is the chink of cash to me!)
Since then I’ve turned my art to fresh accounts,
(A goodly balance is fair to see!)
And rival razors puffed for large amounts.
(O, rarest of letters are £ s. d.!)
I’ve painted, too, with realistic tricks,
“The Penny Steamboat’s Progress” (set of six),
From Old Swan Pier, till at Vauxhall she sticks!
(O, sweet is the chink of cash to me!)
Truth. Christmas Number, 1882.
London Town.
A Lyric à la Mode.
Kent-born Helen, England’s pride,
(O London Town!)
Had a waist a world too wide
For the height of her heart’s desire.
Vinegar she in vain had tried.
(O London Town!
Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)
Helen knelt at Fashion’s shrine,
(O London Town!)
Saying, “A little boon is mine,
A little boon, but my heart’s desire.
Here me speak, and make me a sign!
(O London Town!
Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)
“Look! my waist is in excess,
(O London Town!)
I would die to have it less.
Shape it to my heart’s desire.
Fit for fashionable dress.
(O London Town!
Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)
“It is moulded like a Greek’s,
(O London Town!)
One of Nature’s spiteful freaks.
Pinch it to my heart’s desire:
I am full of pains and piques.
(O London Town!
Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)
“See Bell Fane’s, how slim it is!
(O London Town!)
Eighteen inches at most, I wis!
Poisons the cup of my heart’s desire.
O that I should suffer this!
(O London Town!
Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)
“Yea, for straitness here I sue!
(O London Town!)
Antifat I find won’t do;
Give me, give me, my heart’s desire,
Three inches less, or at least full two.”
(O London Town!
Fashion’s thralls ne’er tire!)
(Eight verses omitted.)
Punch. April 24, 1880.
The following rather more serious imitation of Rossetti is from “The Diversions of the Echo Club” by Bayard Taylor. Mr. Taylor remarks that Rossetti’s poetry is encumbered with the burden of colour, sensuous expression, and mediæval imagery and drapery; but he forgot to mention that Rossetti wrote as an artist, and that some of his finest poems were written to accompany, and to elucidate, certain of his own pictures.
Cimabuella.
I.
Fair-tinted cheeks, clear eyelids drawn
In crescent curves above the light
Of eyes, whose dim, uncertain dawn
Becomes not day: a forehead white
Beneath long yellow heaps of hair:
She is so strange she must be fair.
II.
Had she sharp, slant-wise wings outspread,
She were an angel; but she stands
With flat dead gold behind her head,
And lilies in her long thin hands:
Her folded mantle, gathered in,
Falls to her feet as it were tin.
III.
Her nose is keen as pointed flame;
Her crimson lips no thing express;
And never dread of saintly blame
Held down her heavy eyelashes:
To guess what she were thinking of,
Precludeth any meaner love.
IV.
An azure carpet, fringed with gold,
Sprinkled with scarlet spots, I laid
Before her straight, cool feet unrolled:
But she nor sound nor movement made
(Albeit, I heard a soft, shy smile,
Printing her neck a moment’s while);
V.
And I was shamed through all my mind
For that she spake not, neither kissed,
But stared right past me. Lo! behind
Me stood, in pink and amethyst,
Sword-girt and velvet-doubleted,
A tall, gaunt youth, with frowzy head,
VI.
Wide nostrils in the air, dull eyes,
Thick lips that simpered, but, ah me!
I saw, with most forlorn surprise,
He was the Thirteenth Century,
I but the Nineteenth: then despair
Curdled beneath my curling hair.
VII.
O, Love and Fate! How could she choose
My rounded outlines, broader brain,
And my resuscitated Muse?
Some tears she shed, but whether pain
Or joy in him unlocked their source,
I could not fathom which, of course.
VIII.
But I from missals, quaintly bound,
With either and with clavichord
Will sing her songs of sovran sound:
Belike her pity will afford
Such faint return as suits a saint
So sweetly done in verse and paint.
——:o:——
THE LEAF.
Those who have read Rossetti’s lines, commencing
“Torn from your parent bough,
Poor leaf, all withered now,
Where go you?”
will remember that he gives them as translated from Leopardi. It is, however, rather curious that Rossetti does not seem to have noticed that Leopardi headed his little poem “Imitazione” thus distinctly disclaiming the authorship.
The following is Leopardi’s version:—
Imitazione.
Lungi dal proprio ramo,
Povera foglia frale
Dove vai tu? Dal faggio
Là dov’ io nacqui, mi divise il vento.
Esso, tornando, a volo
Dal bosco alla campagna,
Dalla valle mi porta alla montagna
Seco perpetuamente;
Vo pellegrino, e tutto l’altro ignoro.
Vo dove ogni altra cosa
Dove naturalmente
Va la foglia di rosa
E la foglia d’alloro.
Leopardi translated these lines from a collection of fables by A. V. Arnault, Paris, 1826, where they are styled:—
De la tige détachée.
Pauvre feuille desséchée,
Ou vas-tu? Je n’en sais rien.
L’orage a brisé le chêne
Qui seul etait mon soutien.
De son inconstante haleine
Le zéphir ou l’acquilon
Depuis ce jour me promène
De la montagne à la plaine,
De la forêt au vallon,
Je vais où le vent me mène,
Hélas! sans trop m’effrayer;
Je vais où va toute chose,
Où va la feuille de rose,
Où va la feuille de laurier.
These lines had been previously translated into English, before Rossetti, by Macaulay, as follows:—
Thou poor leaf, so sear and frail,
Sport of every wanton gale,
Whence and whither dost thou fly
Through this bleak autumnal sky?
On a noble oak I grew,
Green and broad and fair to view;
But the monarch of the shade
By the tempest low was laid.
From that time I wandered o’er
Wood and valley, hill and moor;
Wheresoe’er the wind is blowing,
Nothing caring, nothing knowing.
Thither go I whither goes
Glory’s laurel, Beauty’s rose.
Before leaving Rossetti mention must be made of a singular series of illustrated parodies which appeared in Punch, March 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31, 1866. The illustrations, by Du Maurier, seem to have been intended partly to ridicule Burne Jones’s style, and partly that of Rossetti; as to the poem, it is of the ultra weird and sensational ballad form, with a slight dash of the “Lady of Shalott” thrown in, and the inevitable refrain, popularly supposed to be inseparable from Pre-raffaelite art.
A Legend of Camelot.
Tall Braunighrindas left her bed
At cock-crow with an aching head,
O Miserie!
“I yearn to suffer and to do,”
She cried, “ere sunset, something new!
O Miserie!
“To do and suffer, ere I die,
I care not what. I know not why.
O Miserie!
“Some quest I crave to undertake,
Or burden bear, or trouble make.”
O Miserie!
She shook her hair about her form
In waves of colour bright and warm.
O Miserie!
It rolled and writhed and reached the floor;
A silver wedding-ring she wore.
O Miserie!
She left her tower, and wandered down
Into the High street of the town.
O Miserie!
Her pale feet glimmered, in and out,
Like tombstones as she went about.
O Miserie!
From right to left, and left to right;
And blue veins streakt her insteps white;
O Miserie!
And folks did ask her in the street
“How fared it with her long pale feet?”
O Miserie!
And blinkt, as though ’twere hard to bear
The red-heat of her blazing hair!
O Miserie!
Sir Galahad and Sir Launcelot
Came hand in hand down Camelot;
O Miserie!
Sir Gauwaine followed close behind;
A weight hung heavy on his mind.
O Miserie!
“Who knows this damsel, burning bright,”
Quoth Launcelot “like a northern light?”
O Miserie!
Quoth Sir Gauwaine: “I know her not!”
“Who quoth you did?” Quoth Launcelot.
O Miserie!
Then quoth the pure Sir Galahad;
“She seems, methinks, but lightly clad!”
O Miserie!
“Ah me!” sighed Launcelot where he stood,
“I cannot fathom it!” … (Who could?)
O Miserie!
* * * * *
——:o:——
The following beautiful sonnet written by Miss Christina Rossetti, sister of D. G. Rossetti, appears in “Goblin Market and other Poems,” published by Macmillan & Co., 1879:
REMEMBER.
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for awhile
And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
This appears to be almost the only poem by Miss Rossetti which has tempted the mocking-bird to sing.
Remember.
Remember it, although you’re far away—
Too far away more fivers yet to land,
When you no more can proffer notes of hand,
Nor I half yearn to change my yea to nay.
Remember, when no more in airy way,
You tell me of repayment sagely planned:
Only remember it, you understand!
It’s rather late to counsel you to pay;
Yet if you should remember for awhile,
And then forget it wholly, I should grieve;
For, though your light procrastinations leave
Small remnants of the hope that once I had,
Than that you should forget your debt and smile,
I’d rather you’d remember and be sad.
Judy. April 18, 1888.
Ding Dong.
By Rosina Christelli.
Ding Dong, Ding Dong,
There goes the gong,
Dick, come along,
’Tis time for dinner.
Wash your face,
Take your place,
Where’s your grace
You little sinner?
“Like an apple?”
“Yes, I should.
Nice, nice, nicey!
Good, good, good!”
“Manners, Miss,
Please behave.
Those you ask
Shan’t have.”
“Those who don’t,
Don’t want.
I’ll eat it,
You shan’t.”
Baby cry,
Wipe his eye.
Baby good,
Give him food.
Baby sleepy,
Go to bed.
Baby naughty,
Smack his head!
Poor little thrush,
Found dead in a bush!
When did he die?
He is rather high.
Bury him deep,
He won’t keep.
Bury him well,
Or he’ll smell.
What have horns? Cows and moons.
What have crests? Cocks and spoons.
What are nice? Ducks and peas.
What are nasty? Bites of fleas.
What are fast? Tides and times.
What are slow? Nursery Rhymes.
From The Light Green. Cambridge, W. Metcalf and Sons, 1872.
