Even in a palace, life may be led well!1 Our freedom for a little bread we sell, 1"I was subject to the emperor my father, and bred under him, who was the most proper person living to put me out of conceit with pride, and to convince me that it is possible to live in a palace without the ceremony of guards, without richness and distinction of habit, without torches, statues, or such other marks of royalty and state; and that a prince may shrink himself almost into the figure of a private gentleman, and yet act, nevertheless, with all the force and majesty of his character when the common weal requires it.' Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Bk. I. The LINES WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS 1 (From Empedocles in Etna and Other Poems, 1852) In this lone, open glade I lie, Those black-crown'd, red-boled pine-trees stand! 1 Kensington Gardens, a beautiful and wonderfully secluded park in the midst of London, west of Hyde Park and not far from Piccadilly. When Arnold wrote his Lines, the beauty and seclusion of the Gardens was increased by many fine old trees. Birds here make song, each bird has his, Across the girdling city's hum. How green under the boughs it is! How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come! Here at my feet what wonders pass, Scarce fresher is the mountain sod 5 10 15 Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout. 20 In the huge world, which roars hard by, But in my helpless cradle I Was breathed on by the rural Pan. Yet here is peace for ever new! Dante Gabriel Kossetti 1828-1882 THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 1 (Third Version, from Poems, 1870) The blessed2 damozel leaned out From the gold bar of Heaven; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even; She had three lilies in her hand. And the stars in her hair were seven. 25 30 335 40 5 1 Rossetti wrote this poem in his nineteenth year, or in 1847. W. M. Rossetti remarks that The Blessed Damozel "ranks as highly remarkable among the works of juvenile writers," especially when its "total unlikeness to any other poem then extant is taken into account." It was published in the second number of The Germ, 1850; it appeared next in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856, and finally in the Poems of 1870. 2 i. e. one of the blest in paradise. "We two," she said, "will seek the groves With her five handmaidens, whose names 105 This may have been suggested by the Tree of Life (Gen. ii., 9), or by the tree Yggdrasil of the Scandinavian mythology, the tree of existence, which bound together heaven, earth, and hell. In the latter case, it may have been intended to symbolize the mystic union of spiritual existence, as Rossetti represents every leaf, or utmost part, responding in praise to the influence of the Divine Spirit. In Rossetti's picture founded on this poem, "a glimpse is caught (above the figure of the Blessed Damosel) of the groves of paradise, wherein, beneath the shade of the spreading branches of a vast tree, the newly-met lovers embrace and rejoice with each other, on separation over and union made perfect at last." V. Sharp's Rossetti, p. 251. Consider the sea's listless chime: Is the sea's end: our sight may pass No furlong further. Since time was, This sound hath told the lapse of time. No quiet, which is death's,-it hath Listen alone beside the sea, Listen alone among the woods; 10 15 SILENT NOON (From, The House of Life, in Ballads and Sonnels, 1881) Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, 5 Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthornhedge. 'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass. (From Devotional Pieces) I watched a rosebud very long Brought on by dew and sun and shower, Waiting to see the perfect flower; Then, when I thought it should be strong, It opened at the matin hour And fell at even-song. I watched a nest from day to day, 15 A green nest full of pleasant shade, Then in my wrath I broke the bough But the dead branch spoke from the sod, SONNET 15 20 5 |