Pain’s blinking snake around the fair isle’s core,
Turning to sighs the enchanted sounds that play
Around thy lonely island evermore.”
The mingled pain and privilege of Mr. Watts’s ministry was shared to a great degree by Lord and Lady Mount Temple, Mrs. Sumner, Dr. Gordon Hake and his son, Mr. George Hake, Mr. Madox Brown, Mr. Frederick Shields, and Mr. Sandys. Mr. Leyland also saw him frequently, and added generous and unremitting friendship to his patronage of the wayward painter’s work. He was the purchaser of some of the most important pictures of Rossetti’s last decade, including the beautiful “Dis Manibus,” or “The Roman Widow,” (1874), which remains unsurpassed for delicate purity and depth of colour by any of the masterpieces of his prime; “Mnemosyne,” or “La Ricordanza,” or “The Lamp of Memory” (1876–78), one of his most noble and impressive symbolic figures; “The Sea-Spell,” (1875–77), and a replica of “The Blessed Damozel” (1873–77), which he painted for Mr. William Graham in illustration of his own poem:
“The Blessed Damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depths
Of water stilled at even:
She had three lilies in her hand
And the stars in her hair were seven.”