The Poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Rare Edition!

I am adding to my rare book collection: authors and poets of the nineteenth century! You must begin with Lord Tennyson and next was a Pre-Raphaelite painter known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Last week, I came across a two volume U.S. edition for sale at a prominent book store for a cheaper price than I paid for my Tennyson single edition of The May Queen! It arrived earlier today in beautiful condition, no torn pages, no foxing to pages. It was double rubber banded and bubble wrapped! Thank you very much. They are now on my shelf next to Tennyson. Though, Rossetti and Tennyson did not get along very well in life, let's hope they are in the after life and upon my shelf!

The Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Volumes I and II, Little Brown & Company, Boston,  1889 Edition by The Robert Brothers

Frontpiece, Volume I with onion skin paper covering right page. Photograph of Dante Gabriel Rossetti image by George P. Landow

 

This is the right side page of Volume I next to Rossetti Photograph. 

Inside dedication to Rosseitti's mother Frances Mary Lavinia Rossetti and his brother William Michael Rossetti (W.M.R.)

 The Blessed Damozel

 The Day Dream

 Prosperina

 Prosperina in Italian as well

PAINTINGS AND POETRY by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 The blessed 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. 

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
       No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary's gift,
       For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
       Was yellow like ripe corn. 

Herseemed she scarce had been a day 

       One of God's choristers;

Afar away the light that brings cold cheer 

Unto this wall, - one instant and no more
Admitted at my distant palace-door
Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.
Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey
That chills me: and afar how far away,
The nights that shall become the days that were.

Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing
Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:
And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,
O, Whose sounds mine inner sense in fain to bring,
Continually together murmuring) —
'Woe me for thee, unhappy Proserpine'.
Prosperina— D. G. Rossetti

Prosperina painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti modeled by Jane Morris

THE DAY-DREAM

THE thronged boughs of the shadowy sycamore
Still bear young leaflets half the summer through;
From when the robin 'gainst the unhidden blue
Perched dark, till now, deep in the leafy core,
The embowered throstle's urgent wood-notes soar
Through summer silence. Still the leaves come new;
Yet never rosy-sheathed as those which drew
Their spiral tongues from spring-buds heretofore.

Within the branching shade of Reverie
Dreams even may spring till autumn; yet none be
Like woman's budding day-dream spirit-fann'd.
Lo! tow'rd deep skies, not deeper than her look,
She dreams ; till now on her forgotten book
Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand. 

The Day Dream by Dante Gabriel Rossetti modeled by Jane Morris

Some eye candy...the gorgeous Aiden Turner reading The Kiss by Dante Gabriel Rossetti