Women and Flowers in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's...

Ghent University

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

2006 - 2007

„Women and Flowers‟ in

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Poetry

Dissertation submitted in partial

fulfilment of the requirements for

the degree of "Licentiaat in de

Supervisor: Taal- en Letterkunde: Germaanse Talen"

Prof. Dr. Marysa Demoor by Eva Vanhercke

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Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Demoor, for her

recommendations with regard to secondary literature, her understanding and her helpful

advice.

Secondly, I would like to express my thanks to Mr and Mrs Nuttin for taking time to

read through large parts of my text.

I also owe a great debt of gratitude to my parents, who have spared neither trouble nor

expense to help me realize this dissertation. Furthermore, their unremitting encouragement

has been much appreciated.

Finally, I would like to thank my friends who have helped me with their moral support.

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Contents

Introduction 5

Chapter 1: The Life and Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1.1. Introduction 7

1.2. Chronological overview 7

1.3. Anecdotes 18

1.4. Conclusion 21

Chapter 2: Flowers and their (symbolic) significance throughout history

2.1. Introduction 22

2.2. Overview 22

2.2.1. The early beginnings 22

2.2.2. Greeks and Romans and the increasing importance of flowers 23

2.2.3. The ambivalent attitude towards plant life at the time of early 24

Christianity

2.2.4. The gradual re-appreciation of flowers in the Middle Ages 25

2.2.5. The Renaissance and the return to nature 26

2.2.6. Nineteenth-century flower-mania in the shape of a „language of 27

flowers‟

2.2.7. The role of flowers in contemporary Western Europe 31

2.3. Conclusion 32

Chapter 3: Women as flowers in the nineteenth century


3.2. The close connection between women and nature 33

3.3. Women as flowers in nineteenth-century literature 35

3.4. Women as flowers in nineteenth-century poetry by women 38

3.4.1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning 41

3.4.2. Christina Rossetti 43

3.4.3. Dora Greenwell 44

3.4.4. Emily Dickinson 46

4

3.5. Conclusion 49

Chapter 4: Women, flowers and Dante Gabriel Rossetti


4.2. Rossetti‟s „good ladies‟ 51

4.2.1. The white lily 51

4.2.2. „Mary‟s Girlhood‟ 51

4.2.3. „The Blessed Damozel‟ 53

4.3. Rossetti‟s „bad ladies‟ 57

4.3.1. The rose 57

4.3.2. „Jenny‟ 58

4.3.3. „Rose Mary‟ 65

4.4. „I am the poet of the body, And I am the poet of the soul‟ 73

4.4.1. The rose and the poppy 73

4.4.2. „Body‟s Beauty‟ 74

4.4.3. „Soul‟s Beauty‟ 78

4.4.4. „Body‟s Beauty‟ and „Soul‟s Beauty‟: each other‟s opposites? 80

4.5. Conclusion 82

Conclusion 83

Appendix

Poems 84

Paintings 126

Bibliography 130

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Introduction

The Victorian Dante Gabriel Rossetti was drawn to both poetry and painting and

therefore he decided to establish a career in both arts. Today, he is best known for his

paintings. His poetry remains somewhat neglected by the general audience. Rossetti himself,

however, seems to have attached more importance to his poetic than to his pictorial

achievements. As he wrote in a letter to an acquaintance in 1870: „My own belief is that I am

a poet (within the limits of my powers) primarily.‟1

In this dissertation, I will devote some attention to Rossetti‟s poetry. My interest for his

work was awakened when I was taking a course on Victorian Poetry. Out of all the poems we

discussed, Rossetti‟s „The Blessed Damozel‟ was my favourite.

The majority of critics studied Rossetti‟s poetry with an eye on discovering references

to his life in his verses. The aspect of his poetry that I will focus on, however, is the flower

imagery. In this way I hope to offer an alternative approach to his work.

Rossetti‟s friend William Holman Hunt remarked that Gabriel seemed to have decided

that the only things worth painting were women and flowers.2 Although Hunt was of course

generalizing, it is true that women and flowers play an important part in both Rossetti‟s

pictures and his verses. In this dissertation, I will study a few poems in which „women‟ and

„flowers‟ occur together. It is my intention to determine what the flower images contribute to

the representation of the female figures in these poems. For, in Rossetti‟s work, flowers are

not (only) referred to for aesthetic reasons. First and foremost, they function as a symbol.

According to Julian Treuherz, an expert in Victorian art, the symbolism Rossetti uses in his

paintings is essential to what he wants to express.3 Also Mégroz writes that in Rossetti‟s

1 See The Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ed. Oswald Doughty and John Robert Wahl. (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1965-1967), 4 vols. (indicated by number, not page), 992, quoted in Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings of

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2000), p. xxii. 2 See Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His Family-Letters with a Memoir, ed. William Michael Rossetti. (London: Ellis,

1895), vol. 1, p. 202, quoted in Virginia M. Allen, “„One Strangling Golden Hair‟: Dante Gabriel Rossetti‟s

Lady Lilith.” Art Bulletin 66:2 (1984), p. 288. 3 See Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Zwolle: Waanders

Uitgevers; Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum; Liverpool: The Walker, 2003), p. 22.

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poetry, natural imagery is an important element and is always to be interpreted symbolically.4

Therefore, through close reading, I will try to find out which symbolic meaning Rossetti

attaches to which type of flower and what exactly the function of these flower images is in the

context of the selected poems.

I have divided my thesis into four chapters. The first chapter is an introductory chapter

on Rossetti‟s life and work. In the second chapter, I will try to give a brief overview of how

flowers acquired symbolic meanings throughout the ages. I will devote particular attention to

the significance of flowers in the nineteenth century. The third chapter will deal with the

Victorian tradition of associating women with flowers, and with how this convention found

expression in nineteenth-century literature. I will also look into the way a few of Rossetti‟s

contemporary women poets challenged this tradition. Finally, in the last chapter I will explore

Rossetti‟s use of flower imagery in a number of poems in which the focus is on a female

character. I have included the texts of the poems in an appendix. The edition of Rossetti‟s

work that I will be using is the one by Jan Marsh.5 This collection proved useful because it

contains all of Rossetti‟s literary works (prose as well as poetry) and because of the notes

accompanying each one of his works.

4 See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Painter Poet of Heaven in Earth. (Michigan: Scholarly Press, Inc.,

1972), p. 206. 5 See Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. (Chicago: New Amsterdam Books, 2000).

All quotations from Dante Gabriel Rossetti‟s poems are taken from this edition.

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Chapter 1: The Life and Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1.1. Introduction

This chapter on Rossetti‟s fascinating life consists of two parts. I will first give a short

overview of important dates, events and people in the painter-poet‟s life. In the second part of

the chapter, I will select a few anecdotes about Rossetti to add to the factual information.

1.2. Chronological overview

The painter-poet Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti‟s roots are to be found in Italy. His

ancestors‟ surname had been Della Guardia for ages, until their nickname Rossetti - given to

them because of their red hair - replaced their official surname round about the eighteenth

century. Gabriel‟s grandparents were simple working people living in Naples.

Gabriele Rossetti, Gabriel‟s father, was born as the third son of this couple in 1783. The

boy started to write and draw early on in life. Later on, the man became an important poet,

who wrote mainly on political subjects. In his thirties, he became a member of a group

supporting the revolution against the absolutist king of Naples, Ferdinand II. In 1821, after

composing incentive „odes to liberty‟,6 he was expelled from Italy. He travelled with the

English fleet to Malta, where he would stay for about four years, after which he eventually got

settled in London in 1825. He was not the only Italian there. There was a community of

immigrated Italians like himself in the city. He became a teacher of Italian to make a (modest)

living. One of the notable members in the Italian circle was Gaetano Polidori. It was his

daughter Frances Mary Lavinia that Gabriele Rossetti married in 1826.

The Rossettis had four children. Gabriel Charles Dante was born on 12th

May 1828 as

the first son and the second child of the family.7 His sister Maria Francesca was born a year

6 See Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. xii.

7 Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti was his given name. He was named after Charles Lyell, a friend of the family,

and after the Italian thirteenth- and fourteenth-century writer Dante Alighieri, who was one of the family‟s

8

before him. His brother William Michael was born a year after Gabriel. His sister Christina

Georgina was the youngest child as she was born in 1830.

The atmosphere of the Rossetti household has most probably had some influence on the

way the children later on developed their talents and personalities. The family of six would in

the Victorian era have been seen as belonging to the lower middle classes, even after Gabriele

became Professor of Italian Literature at King‟s College School in 1831, but the Rossetti

parents gave the intellectual preference over the material.

The children‟s mother is said to have been an intelligent, educated and religious woman.

The father of the family was very much interested in politics (the Rossetti home was visited

by a lot of political refugees), but another of his great passions became the study of Dante

Alighieri‟s writings. The Rossetti children must have been familiar with the whole idea of

writing, since their father published some writings of his own. In Gabriel however, his parents

saw a painter, although next to drawing, the young boy also composed stories of his own. The

Slave, which he conceived at the age of five, is considered to be an early sign of the talent he

would later develop. It was inspired by Shakespeare and Dante.

In those early days, Gabriel already had a personality that one could not describe as

average. His brother‟s Some Reminiscences (1906), however, seems to suggest that Gabriel

must have been a difficult child. William Michael considered him to be dominant and

passionate, and claims that Gabriel was like that until the end of his days.8

Mrs. Rossetti valued the intellectual a lot and she insisted on educating her children, the

girls as well as the boys, herself when they were little. Thanks to their mother, the Rossetti

children were able to read and write from a young age. Also, they learned two languages,

since Frances used to talk to the children in English and Gabriele used to address them in

Italian. According to Sharp, however, Rossetti thought of himself as being English: „He

seemed always to me an unmistakable Englishman, yet the Italian element was frequently

recognisable; as far as his own opinion is concerned, he was wholly English.‟9 Moreover, in a

letter to his father a few years later, Gabriel himself acknowledges that he is not as proficient

favourite authors. In 1849, Gabriel changed the order of his names into Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In this way he

expressed more clearly the importance of Dante‟s writings in his life. 8 See Some Reminiscences, ed. William Michael Rossetti. (London: Brown & Longham, 1906), vol. i, section ii,

quoted in R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 32. 9 See William Sharp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Record and a Study. (New York: AMS Press, 1970), p. 37.

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in Italian as he is in English: „[…] still the labour of composing in a language in which I am

so imperfect is an agony that I would willingly avoid.‟10

The family income was not at all abundant, but it was enough to allow the boys to get

schooling at a local school first, from the age of eight, and then at King‟s College School.

Half-way through 1842, Gabriel left King‟s College after five years of studying

there. By then, he had acquired knowledge of French, Latin and German romantic literature.

He had read poets such as Shelley, Keats, Scott, Browning and Byron. He mastered the Italian

language enough to read Italian texts, but it was not until he was sixteen that he began to read

Dante‟s Vita Nuova (1292) and Divina Commedia (circa 1320), with which his father was so

enchanted. The works were to become an important factor in Gabriel‟s career as a poet and a

painter.

Gabriel‟s parents encouraged their eldest son to develop his talents as an artist and

showed a preference for painting over writing poetry, because one could easier make a living

by painting than by writing verse at that time. He was allowed to get art training, first at

Cary‟s Art Academy Antique School, commonly known as Sass‟s Academy, in 1842, and in

1845 in the Antique School of the Royal Academy.

Gabriel was enthusiastic about neither of those institutions. His brother noted that at one

time, Gabriel confided him the following: „As soon as a thing is imposed on me as an

obligation, my aptitude for doing it is gone; what I ought to do is what I can’t do‟.11

In this

light, it becomes clearer to us why Gabriel tended more towards writing in those years than to

actually committing himself to what he was supposed to do. It was during his days at the

Academy that he threw himself onto producing translations of Italian literary works, which

were published later on as Early Italian Poets (1861), and onto writing verses of his own.

Also three of his friends - Holman Hunt, Stephens and Madox Brown - have observed

that the young Rossetti lacked the artistic discipline required to make the best out of a work of

10

Quoted in R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 42. 11

See Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His Family-Letters with a Memoir, ed. William Michael Rossetti, ix, quoted in

R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 44.

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art. However, they also noted that when he was really enthusiastic about a concept, he would

work on it for days and days, ignoring the times when it was appropriate to eat and sleep.12

As the young Rossetti was disappointed with the training at both of the schools, he

looked for an alternative himself. In 1848, he wrote a letter to Ford Madox Brown, a young

painter who was not yet established but who had had his education on the continent and who

already had experience on the technical level. Brown accepted Gabriel as his pupil.

At about the same time, Rossetti sent some poems to Leigh Hunt asking him for his

opinion.13

Hunt advised him to set his mind onto a career in painting rather than in writing

poetry, because even though he liked Rossetti‟s verse, he believed it would be easier for the

young man to earn a living as a painter.

Because of the advice of his parents as well as that of Leigh Hunt, Gabriel eventually

chose painting as a profession. This did not mean, however, that he gave up writing verse.

The interest in both arts was clear in the works Rossetti produced. Sometimes, there was not a

clear distinction to be made between pictures and verses. He often made pieces of art that

consisted of both paintings and poems. Lines of poetry occurred on the frames of paintings

and there were several instances in which a poem and a painting belonged together as two

expressions of the same idea. The poem and the painting, then, reinforced and influenced each

other.

Since Rossetti had left the Academy School early, he had difficulties with technique and

to improve this, Brown made him paint still-life compositions. This frustrated Rossetti quite a

bit, since he was eager to make compositions of his own. At the age of twenty, he met

William Holman Hunt, who was only twenty-one himself at that time. As a result, Rossetti

soon after shared Hunt‟s studio with him. There, Rossetti would for the first time concentrate

on painting. He harvested a lot of admiration with the themes he portrayed in his paintings,

but perspective remained a weakness of his.

Another very important event in 1848 was the founding of the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood.

12

See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 102. 13

Leigh Hunt was an English essayist, critic, journalist and poet. See Michael Alexander, A History of English

Literature. (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), p. 232, 237.

11

At the Royal Academy, students were supposed to create paintings similar to those of

the eighteenth-century painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. Rossetti and his friends, however,

believed that this artist paid too little attention to nature and that he made too much use of

dark colours. The young men preferred the approach of the artists preceding the sixteenth-

century Italian painter Raphael. Their common aim was to be, „to paint what they [saw] in

nature, without reference to conventional or established rules. It was the “archaic honesty” of

the painters who had preceded Raphael, not their archaic style, that [they] found appealing.‟14

The seven members of the Brotherhood were the painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, James Collinson, Frederick George Stephens, the

sculptor Thomas Woolner and Gabriel‟s brother William Michael Rossetti, a critic in art and

literature. Gabriel‟s friend and mentor Ford Madox Brown, although never a member of the

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was considered to be an unofficial „Pre-Raphaelite‟.

According to Mégroz, „[t]he wonder is not that the Brotherhood which they formed

dissolved so soon, but that it endured for three or four years‟,15

since all men were different

from each other except in their idealism when it came to art. Indeed, in practice, the painters

were not so much alike in the choice of themes or in trying to paint true to nature, as they

were in the application of colours. Nevertheless their ideas exposed common features, as they

went back to the same source.

The first exhibition of their assembled works in 1849 did not receive that much

attention. In 1850, however, the young artists were heavily criticized. Alexander Munro, a

friend of Gabriel Rossetti, had told about the Brotherhood to a certain Angus Reach. Reach

wrote pieces of gossip for the Illustrated London News. On the occasion of the second Pre-

Raphaelite exhibition in 1850, the young artists had to cope with a lot of bad reviews by the

art critics. John Ruskin wrote letters in defence of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1851

and he in his turn severely criticized the traditional views on art in Britain at that time.

By 1850, the Brotherhood had also set up a magazine that they called The Germ. It

included contributions by Gabriel Rossetti and his sister Christina and some articles on the

aims of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which unfortunately were somewhat incoherent.

After two numbers, the title The Germ was replaced by Art and Poetry but after two more

numbers, the magazine disappeared. The Brotherhood itself slowly dissolved.

14

See Thomas L. Jeffers, “Tennyson‟s Lady of Shalott and Pre-Raphaelite renderings: Statement and Counter-

Statement.” Religion and the Arts 6:3 (2002), p. 231. 15

See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 144.

12

Next to being an important phase in the careers of the young artists, the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood became the basis of an important network for establishing social contacts.

Rossetti‟s circle of friends grew wider as he met other artists at assemblies organised by the

Pre-Raphaelite group. He also often befriended painters or poets whom he admired and whom

he sent letters to in order to express his esteem of them, such as W.B. Scott and Robert

Browning. His circle of friends also expanded as old friends introduced him to new people.

In 1850, Gabriel Rossetti met Elizabeth Siddal. Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal16

was the

daughter of a working class family. Her father was a cutler and she herself was working as an

assistant in a milliner‟s shop in London. Walter Deverell, a painter and friend of the members

of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, met her in 1850 in that very shop. He is said to have been

overwhelmed by her beauty and he convinced her to model for his paintings. He assured his

friends that although she had a modest background, she behaved like a real lady and he

invited them to come over and have a look for themselves. The seventeen-year-old girl soon

modelled for a lot of other members of the Brotherhood, including Rossetti and Hunt. Rossetti

confided to his friend Ford Madox Brown that he felt that his destiny was defined when he

first saw Elizabeth.17

For him, she represented the same thing as Beatrice did to Dante

Alighieri, namely a real woman who personified all beauty and goodness and the ideal love.18

Siddal must have been as much interested in Gabriel as he was in her: after a short

while, she left the milliner‟s shop to be Rossetti‟s full-time model. Moreover, she herself took

on the practice of painting under Rossetti directions, not without any success.

This might be seen as the beginning of the difficult relation between Gabriel Rossetti

and Lizzie Siddal. It would take him ten more years to actually marry her and there would be

many ups and downs in their relationship.

Rossetti‟s friends were quite fond of Elizabeth and her work. People had several pet-

names for her, including „the Sid‟, „Guggum‟, and „Liz‟. Rossetti‟s friend Ruskin in particular

is said to have been most probably in love with her. Mégroz believes this was one of the

reasons why Ruskin offered the couple financial help for several years.19

16

Officially, her name was spelt with double „l‟ and her family continued to write it like that, but Rossetti left

out one „l‟ when writing her surname and others soon did the same.

See Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 140. 17

See Ruskin, Rossetti, Preraphaelitism. Papers 1854 to 1862, ed. William Michael Rossetti. (London: George

Allen, 1899), 10th March 1855, quoted in R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 51. 18

See Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. xv. 19


13

During the 1850s, Lizzie was very often ill and her poor health was to be an issue for

the rest of her days. Once in a while, she went abroad hoping that she would get better.

In 1856, Rossetti met Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris and he encouraged them

to start an artistic career. Rossetti himself had a talent for valuing the work of young artists

who had not yet been noticed. His own influence and opinion boosted the careers of these

artists, as did the influence of the people who were his friends. In 1857, the three men and

some other artist friends, such as Swinburne, Munro, and Woodward, proposed to decorate

the blank spaces on the walls between the windows of the Debating Hall of the Oxford Union

Society. They were allowed to execute the project and they did so with a lot of enthusiasm.

They were called the Oxford Group and this group can be seen as a second sort of

brotherhood of which Rossetti was the key figure. Eventually, because the artists did not

know how to prepare the walls for painting, the decorations scaled off in no time.

After they had been engaged for almost ten years, Rossetti and Siddal got married on

23rd

May 1860. Mégroz states that this was not at all a fortunate development in their

relationship.20

According to him, the marriage did not do either of them any good and he even

claims that it might have been better for both of them if they had never married.

One reason he mentions to support this idea is that life was anything but restful for

Elizabeth. The married life of Rossetti and his wife was quite a chaotic one. Lizzie left their

home a lot, looking for places where her health would improve, while Rossetti was busy

working, neglecting regular hours for eating and sleeping. Her state of mind in those days is

reflected in her art.21

Her poetry and painting bare traces of rather morbid thoughts. A lot of

pain is evoked by the poems. Siddal‟s poems most often circle around the theme of betrayal in

love. A lot of people have felt her poems to emanate bitterness and anxiety. The inclination of

some would be to ascribe Lizzie‟s sadness to Rossetti‟s unfaithfulness but one should not

overlook Lizzie‟s innate tendency towards gloominess. She is said to have been difficult to

live with herself.

Rossetti‟s financial situation was changeable during his whole life, to say the least. He had a considerably large

income from the 1860s onwards because of his painting. However, he often had to borrow money from friends

and relatives, because he gave large sums of money to acquaintances who were having financial problems.

Whenever he borrowed money, he tried to return his friends the favour by helping them to sell their work. 20



14

The reason that may account for the fact that Rossetti and Siddal were engaged for a

very long time and postponed the actual wedding, is that there were three instabilities in their

lives: their financial situation, both of their personalities and their poor physical conditions.22

Moreover, Rossetti may have shown a little too much interest in Jane Burden23

, whom

he met in the late 1850s. And before her, there had been Fanny Cornforth24

, who may have

been his mistress for a few years.

Apparently, however, Rossetti managed to get his emotional life back on track, he made

up his mind and he wedded Siddal in a period in which her health was somewhat better. They

left for Paris and went on their honeymoon after that. However, during the honeymoon,

Rossetti worried about his unfinished work, about Lizzie‟s deteriorating health, about his own

emotions. For about a year after the marriage, Lizzie‟s condition seemed to be improving, but

it reached its depth when she gave birth to a stillborn baby-girl in 1861.

On 11th

February 1862, a few weeks before the planned move to a new and hygienically

better house, Elizabeth Rossetti Siddal died of an overdose of laudanum, which she used to

ease her physical pains. Whether she accidentally or deliberately took too large an amount of

the drug is still rather unclear.25

At the burial, Rossetti, maybe out of grief, maybe out of guilt, put a manuscript

containing poems of his in the coffin in her long red hair. Mégroz sees this gesture as a

childlike way of making up for the moments Rossetti might have let his wife down.26

The

feeling of loss he experienced, was one of the causes of his renewed interest in spiritualism.

He held sessions in which he tried to get into contact with his dead wife‟s spirit.

22

See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 67-68. 23

Rossetti met Jane Burden in 1857 in Oxford. She was one of the daughters of a tradesman living in Oxford.

Jane impressed Rossetti with her exotic beauty and he persuaded her to be one of his models. William Morris,

who was a bachelor at that time, was pushed by his friends to marry Jane Burden and she agreed to get engaged

to be married. After her marriage, she was privately educated. Rossetti and Jane Morris started an affair in the

early 1870s. See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 114; Elizabeth Prettejohn, Rossetti and his Circle.

(Millbank, London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 1997), p. 9. 24

Fanny Cornforth was one of Rossetti‟s regular models. Some critics believe that she was a prostitute before

Rossetti met her. After Lizzie died, Cornforth became Gabriel‟s housekeeper and companion.

See Jerome McGann, “Jenny”. The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia

Research Archive. Ed. Jerome McGann. (Charlottesville: Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities,

2000-2007). 11 Nov. 2006. (http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/3-1848.raw.html); Elizabeth Prettejohn,

Rossetti and his Circle, p. 10. 25

See William E. Fredeman, ed., The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Chelsea Years, 1863-

1872. Vol. V. (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2005), p. 407. 26


15

Before Elizabeth Siddal‟s death, Rossetti‟s physical condition had been excellent

although he had been working hard and living his life in an irregular way. However, after the

death of his wife, he began to suffer from more and more infirmities.27

After 1868 he began to

experience problems with sleeping. An American friend advised him to seek relief for his

insomnia in the use of chloral. The drug was new in those days and people wrongly believed

it produced no side effects. To soften the aftertaste of the chloral, Rossetti is said to have

taken to drinking whisky.

In 1869, Gabriel wanted to recover the poems he had once slipped into the coffin in

which his wife was buried, and he was permitted to have the coffin exhumed.

Several opinions have been formulated on the matter, both understanding and

condemning ones. Mégroz writes that he believes that Rossetti himself had mixed feelings

about the exhumation. According to Mégroz, the poet-painter „felt guilty for the reversal of

his former sacrifice.‟28

He adds that:

[t]he emotional complexity in Rossetti cannot be dismissed as mere weakness. It is a part of the

greatness of his genius, and sprang from emotional causes too deep to be controlled by him. The

recovery of the poems was also connected with the most passionate love affair of Rossetti‟s life, if

his poetry, which is always extremely personal, is to be taken as an indication. […] Rossetti

certainly benefited spiritually by that decisive act, and entered upon a new period of creative

expression.29

In connection with this emotional complexity in Gabriel Rossetti, Mégroz refers to

Gabriel‟s youngest sister Christina. In his opinion, we can acquire a better understanding of

Gabriel‟s state of mind by scrutinizing that of Christina, which was apparently very much like

that of her brother: „The important fact in a study of Rossetti is that his sister‟s art shows quite

as clearly as his the vicissitudes of the spirit, the stress of a powerful emotional conflict never

properly resolved.‟30

Between 1869 and 1871, Rossetti started to work on poetry again. Among others, The

House of Life sonnet sequence was accomplished.

27

See William E. Fredeman, ed., The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 411. 28




16

Nowadays, The House of Life volume is considered to be Rossetti‟s greatest literary

achievement. It revolves around such themes as love, death, life and hope. In a posthumously

published note by Rossetti, one reads: „To the Reader of The House of Life. The “life”

involved is neither my life nor your life, but life representative, tripled with love and death.‟ 31

The series of sonnets was written in three periods. Between 1850 and 1854, a few

sonnets had been written that would later be included in the volume of The House of Life. The

majority of poems was produced between 1868 and 1872. Seventeen more sonnets that would

complete the collection of 101 were written between 1873 and 1882.32

In 1870, a volume called Poems was published. It included old and new work and part

of the sonnets written for The House of Life. They were placed under the heading „Towards a

work to be called “The House of Life”‟. Before he published the poems, he asked some

friends to review them, and generally they were well received. After publication, the sales

were good and Rossetti‟s reputation as a poet was established.33

However, other critics were less positive. The biggest attack on Poems came in the form

of an article in the Contemporary Review, written by rival author Robert Buchanan, who was

only identified later on since he had signed the piece with the pseudonym Thomas Maitland.

The title of the article was „The Fleshly School of Poetry‟ and it mocked the sensuality of the

poems of The House of Life volume.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti‟s reaction „The Stealthy School of Criticism‟ of December 1871

only made things worse. Buchanan published his own article as a pamphlet in 1872. At that

time Rossetti was extremely vulnerable, because of his frail emotional state and because of

the influence of chloral and alcohol. He became unsure about his artistic ability, he distrusted

people and he stopped writing.34

At this stage, Rossetti started to spend most of his days at the house in Gloucestershire

he rented along with William Morris, although he already had a house in Cheyne Walk. In the

31

See The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ed. Willliam Michael Rossetti. (London : Ellis, 1911), vol.1, p. 638,

quoted in Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 493. 32

See Ronnalie Roper Howard, The Dark Glass: Union and Technique in the Poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

(Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1972), pp. 164-168. 33

See Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. xxi. 34

According to Mégroz, the Buchanan article was only the last drop that made the cup run over. He claims that

Buchanan‟s article was not an isolated instance of antagonism. Several famous men shared Buchanan‟s ideas,

including Dickens and the editor of Fraser’s Magazine, Parker. The latter wrote the following: „For myself, […]

I am sick of Rossetti and his whole school. I think them essentially unmanly, effeminate, mystical, affected, and

obscure.‟ See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 134.

17

period that Rossetti lived with the Morris family, he grew very close to Jane Morris.35

William Morris did not interfere, feeling that he did not own Jane and that he himself could

not really make her happy. In 1875, the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. decoration firm,

of which William Morris was one of the founders and Rossetti a partner, was to be shut down

after about fourteen years. The friendship between Morris and Rossetti was to come to an end

because of a subsequent quarrel about money. As a result, Rossetti was to leave the home that

he had shared with the Morrises from 1872 onwards.

In 1872, Rossetti attempted suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum, the drug that

had been fatal to his wife. After that, he started to distrust almost everybody, even his best

friends. He, for instance, called off the friendship with Swinburne that had lasted for quite a

number of years, because Swinburne had commented on the technical quality of some of

Rossetti‟s verses.

Encouraged by the remaining friends, Rossetti would return once more to writing verse.

In 1881, a revised edition of Poems was printed. Also a new volume of poetry, entitled

Ballads and Sonnets, was published. The Ballads and Sonnets volume included an expanded

and somewhat modified version of The House of Life. By the time it appeared, however,

Rossetti was in such a bad condition both mentally and physically that he found it hard to be

interested in the publication.

Because he was seriously ill by 1882, he was brought to Birchington-on-Sea in the north

of Kent. At Easter 1882 Dante Gabriel Rossetti passed away. The last years of his life he had

spent in isolation in his house in Cheyne Walk and to the few people who did visit him, he

had seemed only the shadow of the man he had been.

In 1882 and 1883, two commemorative exhibitions of Rossetti‟s paintings were

organized at the Royal Academy and the Burlington Fine Arts Club. Rossetti had rarely

exposed his paintings during his lifetime, and when he did, it was only for a select group of

friends. His pictures were little known by the general public. However, the few people that

35

See Jerome McGann, “An Introduction to D.G. Rossetti.” The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante

Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia Research Archive. Ed. Jerome McGann. (Charlottesville: Institute for Advanced

Technology in the Humanities, 2000-2007). 19 Dec. 2006. (http://www.rossettiarchive.org/racs/bio-

exhibit/index.html); William E. Fredeman, ed., The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 413; Caroline

Healey, “Rossetti‟s Real Fair Ladies: Lizzie, Fanny, and Jane.” The Victorian Web. Ed. George P. Landow. 11

Nov. 2006. (http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/dgr/paintings/healey12.html)

18

did see the paintings responded to them with opposed feelings.36

His most renown paintings

portray women, and the figures seem at the same time attractive and repulsive. A lot of them

did not meet with the Victorian ideal of feminine beauty, as they were somewhat masculine or

even androgynous.

Rossetti made use of a small group of models, such as Lizzie Siddal, Jane Morris,

Fanny Cornforth and Alexa Wilding, to represent a whole range of different characters, be it

historical, literary or mythological. His paintings were not so much an actual accurate

representation of the people he used as models: they merely served to convey an abstract

idea.37

1.3. Anecdotes

So far, we have been looking at the facts in Rossetti‟s life, the important dates, and his

work. In what follows we will have a closer look at Rossetti the man. Maybe this can lead to a

more balanced view of him, since, as Colin Cruise states it, „[…] the vision of the artist as a

reclusive drug-addict tortured by guilt […] I fear […] has had the greater hold on the public

imagination.‟38

Rossetti‟s friends described him in letters, diaries and other writings as a man who was

the dominant one whenever there was a social gathering.39

People are said to have been

overwhelmed by his charm. His friends not only admired him for his work but were equally

attracted to him because of his personality, which seems to have been hypnotic or magnetic.

Some described his way of talking as a mixture of joking and contemplation.

William Sharp, who was a friend of Rossetti during the last years of the painter-poet‟s

life, had the following to say about him:

[…] I know that personally I found him ever affectionately considerate, and generous of heart in a

way that few are able to be with men younger than themselves and with no pretensions to equality,

and that his friendship as friendship has been to me one of the chief boons of my life.

[…]

36

See Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 62, 72, 78. 37

See Elizabeth Prettejohn, Rossetti and his Circle, p. 10. 38

See Colin Cruise, “The pre-eminent Pre-Raphaelite: Revisiting Rossetti.” The Art Book 11:4 (2004), p. 4. 39

See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 106-107.

19

He offended many by his recklessness, but those who really knew him overlooked these minor

inconsistencies and forgave much where they gained much more.40

An interesting account of how Gabriel Rossetti came across was given by Sir Johnston

Forbes-Robertson in an article in the Times of the year 1928. This man was sixteen when he

met Gabriel Rossetti and the occasion was his modelling for a painting of Rossetti in 1870:

Let me try to describe him as I, a boy of 16, remember him at the age of 42. His face was pale, the

colour of old ivory as it were, but it glowed under excitement. His forehead was high-domed and

broad, the brown eyes deep-sunk, lambent, and sad, with the skin about them of a much darker

tone than the rest of the face. His beard was black and slightly forked, and his hair was thick,

black, and curly. The lips were rather full and red, seen slightly through his moustache, which was

not heavy. The face was very handsome, deeply striking, with its calm nobility and impressiveness

- one of those rare faces, in short, that once seen are never forgotten. His voice was rich and deep,

soft to ear as velvet to the touch. His frame was robust, thick-set, and muscular. He stood, I should

say, a little under 5ft. 10 in., but his whole appearance expressed his powerful personality.

[…]

I sat three times for about an hour and a half, being delightfully entertained all the time by his

lively and interesting talk: he treated me as a grown man, which naturally was very flattering.41

In the 1860s, when he was not working on paintings, Rossetti spent his time on some of

his other passions. He collected mirrors, china, porcelain, copper, tin, Spanish wardrobes,

velvet, carpets, furniture, and jewellery. These items formed a mixture of rubbish and

quality.42

He especially enjoyed collecting blue china and old furniture. There is a story about

Rossetti and his fondness of china that survived the ages. It was written down by Henry

Treffry Dunn, who assisted Rossetti in his studio. An acquaintance of Rossetti called Howell,

who also was a collector of china, had found a unique piece and he invited his friends to come

over and have a look at it. Rossetti managed to take the dish with him after the dinner party

and planned to throw a dinner party himself, in order to show his friends „his‟ new dish.

Howell, however, somehow guessed what Rossetti was up to and when he was at Rossetti‟s

40

See William Sharp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 30-31. 41

Quoted in R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 107-108. 42

See Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 229-230.

20

house a few days later, he replaced the dish with an old piece. At the dinner party the

following occurred:

In a few minutes [Rossetti] returned to the dining-room with the package, and began to carefully

remove the wrappings. As the dish became uncovered, a curious, puzzled expression came over his

face, and when it was entirely exposed to view, he stood still in blank astonishment. […] Everyone

rose to look at the dish. A dish it was, certainly, but what a dish! Instead of the beautiful piece of

Nankin that was expected, there was only an old Delft thing, cracked, chipped, and discoloured

through the numerous bakings it had undergone. The whole party, with the exception of Howell,

who looked as grave as a judge, burst into a roar of laughter. Rossetti soon recovered himself and

laughed as heartily as any of his guests at Howell‟s ingenious revenge.43

Another anecdote about a porcelain dish is the one relating how, at a dinner party,

Gabriel Rossetti was so curious about the signs on the bottom of the dish that he turned it

around to see them, forgetting that there was food on it and spilling the contents all over the

table.44

Next to his collections, there was another, less tangible activity that was a favourite

pastime of Rossetti, namely spiritualism. He had been present at séances and talked about the

subject to several people and later on he organized sittings at his own home, mostly in order

to find a form of contact with his wife‟s spirit.45

Music was not something that could bring pleasure to Gabriel Rossetti. Treffry Dunn

reports that during the period he lived in the same house as Rossetti (from 1863 to 1877), he

did not once hear music in there, even though Rossetti had assembled a range of special

instruments. Rossetti only used those as decorative objects in his pictures. One day, a man

who regularly bought some of Rossetti‟s paintings took him to the Royal Opera House to hear

and see Beethoven‟s Fidelio performed. Treffry Dunn, the studio assistant, afterwards asked

Rossetti to tell him of his impressions. Rossetti answered in a rather amusing way that he had

not really appreciated the opera:

43

See Henry Treffry Dunn, Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his Circle (Cheyne Walk Life). (London:

Elkin Mathews, 1904), quoted in R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 125-126. 44

See Henry Holiday, Reminiscences of my Life. (London: W. Heinemann, 1914), p.76, quoted in Julian

Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 234. 45

See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, pp. 126-127.

21

The only notion he [=Rossetti] had of it was that of a man who was taken out of prison, where he

had been for a couple of days without food, and who, when a loaf of bread was given to him,

instead of eating it like any starving man would do, burst out into a long solo over it lasting for ten

minutes - which he thought was obviously absurd! 46

1.4. Conclusion

The mixture of chronological facts with anecdotes as briefly illustrated above, gives us a

more balanced image of what the poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti was like as a son, a

brother, a husband, and a friend.

46

See Henry Treffry Dunn, Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his Circle, quoted in R.L. Mégroz,

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 128.

22

Chapter 2: Flowers and their (symbolic) significance throughout history

2.1. Introduction

This chapter will be dealing with the important place flowers have occupied in

European societies across the centuries. I think it is useful to have a general framework in

which to fit the Victorian interest in plant life. The enthusiasm for flora in the nineteenth

century did not come out of the blue; flowers had already had a magnetic effect on people in

the past too. Moreover, Rossetti and his contemporaries were not the first to match flowers

with symbolic meanings. Throughout the ages, symbolic value had been attributed to flowers.

The material for this short unpretentious overview is for the most part derived from Jack

Goody‟s ambitious work The Culture of Flowers.47

The greater part of the overview will, as

expected, be dedicated to the meaning of flowers for people who lived during the Victorian

era. Next to Goody‟s book, Beverly Seaton‟s The Language of Flowers has been an

indispensable source in the attempt to grasp the nineteenth-century attitude toward flowers.48

2.2. Overview

2.2.1. The early beginnings

Goody traces the early beginnings of the later perceptions of flowers all the way back to

the period that is now called the Bronze Age (3000 BC and on). One of the changes that

marked the beginning of the new age was the domestication of wild plants. Flowers from then

on were not only grown for practical uses but also for aesthetic reasons. Flowers began to be

47

See Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 48

See Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers. A History. (Charlottesville and London: University Press of

Virginia, 1995).

23

appreciated as „ends in themselves‟ rather than be considered as „precursors to vegetables and

fruit‟.49

In the Mesopotamian and Egyptian empires, flowers were cultivated in gardens,

depicted in art and architecture and used in secular and religious contexts. Flowers could for

instance decorate houses as well as be offered to the gods.

However, groups of people belonging to the ancient Israel were living in both

Mesopotamia and Egypt, and had quite different views on the use of flowers. I think it is

worth while mentioning this contrasting point of view because it influenced the Jewish,

Christian and Muslim religions later on. The people of that Israelite society were opposed to

the use of flowers. Their grounds were mainly religious ones. They wanted to set themselves

off against their neighbouring groups, who offered flowers to their gods. In ancient Israel,

these gods were not accepted and neither was the way of honouring them by offering flowers.

2.2.2. Greeks and Romans and the increasing importance of flowers

However, it was not until the Greeks and somewhat later the Romans entered on the

scene that flowers played a substantial part in daily as well as in spiritual life. The Greeks and

Romans regularly went to Egypt and in that way came into touch with, among other things,

the Egyptian gardens and the lotus and acanthus designs in architecture and art. They adopted

the Egyptian tradition of gardening together with their decorative motifs and subsequently,

these influences were spread out throughout most of Europe and Asia, because of trade and

moving military forces.

The input of Greece and Rome to some extent modified what Goody identifies as „the

culture of flowers‟. Next to experimenting with the shape of their gardens, they cultivated a

wider range of sorts of flowers. By that time, the rose rather than the lotus was pervasive in

actual gardens as well as in art and literature. The cultivation of gardens was moreover no

longer a prerogative of royals and aristocrats. Because of the growth of wealth as well as

technology and the beginning of democracy, gardens in antiquity were part of lots of citizens‟

estates. In both classical Greece and Rome, flowers were used in secular as well as religious

contexts. They functioned as decorative elements but were also used to offer to gods. Crowns

and garlands of flowers were moreover commonly used at funerals and for honouring people

49

See Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers, p. 4.

24

that had achieved something remarkable. Hence the traditional image of warriors and bards

with a crown on their heads. „In Greek and Roman times‟, as Seaton writes, „plants had many

symbolic uses‟.50

According to Seaton, that is reflected in particular metamorphic stories that

expressed the meanings attributed to specific flowers. They influenced Western flower

symbolism later on. A well known example of such a story is the one about Narcissus, the

young man who got fascinated by his own reflection and was changed into a flower. Because

of the story, the flower narcissus is still widely linked with egoism.

2.2.3. The ambivalent attitude towards plant life at the time of early Christianity

The fall of the Roman Empire at the end of the fifth century (476 AD) brought with it a

decline in the cultivation and use of and the knowledge about plants in the West. Next to

political and economic crises (defence against foreign invaders was given priority so that

there was no time left to spend on gardening), the emergence of Christianity was a

determining factor in this evolution. As was mentioned above, the Christian view on the use

of flowers was similar to that of ancient Israel. The Christians were not too fond of what they

called „pagan‟ rituals and that included among other things the use of flowers in sacred

circumstances. In ancient times, flowers along with, for instance, animals were offered to the

gods and the departed; and the Christian Church did not approve of these customs. They were

opposed to the idea of offering material goods, because nature was believed to be something

inferior to the divine.

Breaking loose from ancient rituals was one reason for paying less attention to flowers.

Another explanation for minimizing the role of flowers was the condemnation of luxury, since

flowers were seen as luxurious items. Even flower motifs were avoided in art, since the

representation of God or any part of his creation was disapproved of. Goody summarizes

these beliefs as follows: „[…] the medicinal use and passive enjoyment of flowers [was]

permissible; what [was] deplored [was] their use in festivals, for domestic pleasure or even for

ritual and religion.‟51

It should be noted, however, that not each and every member of the

Christian Church was this rigid. A lot of them tolerated the use of flowers in worldly

situations like for instance decoration and even in ceremonial contexts such as weddings and

funerals. Thus, flowers continued to be used among „ordinary‟ people.

50

See Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 42. 51


25

2.2.4. The gradual re-appreciation of flowers in the Middle Ages

During medieval times in Europe (from the fifth century to the fifteenth century),

flowers, gardens, wreaths and botanical knowledge regained importance, partly under the

influence of the Near East, where flower culture had never declined. The Arabs brought with

them that tradition when they reached Southern Europe and occupied Spain from the eighth to

the fifteenth century. Again, also the Christian Church had a part in the revival of flower

culture. Possibly as a way of making a compromise with popular culture,52

the use of flowers

as decorations and as garlands to celebrate certain religion-related occasions (such as

marriages and funerals) was allowed. The symbolism often connected with flowers was

Christianised. Red roses for instance, rather than being linked with earthly love, were then

related to the blood of Christ. There was also a rich flower symbolism revolving around the

figure of the Virgin Mary, but this cult was not without internal inconsistencies, as Goody

explains:

In the art and literature of medieval Europe the Virgin Mary was sometimes visualised as the

enclosed garden, sometimes as a rose in that garden; she was a rose (often white) without thorns.

The rose […] was transformed into a symbol of complex, indeed contradictory, character. In

secular contexts, the red rose was the sign of spring, of love, but it also represented the blood of

the divine victim or martyr, and because of its thorns, death itself. […] The floral imagery was

overlapping rather than exclusive, for the Virgin was also seen as a lily and a violet, while, as we

have seen, Christ too was represented by a red rose […].53

What was also Christianised were the names given to flowers. The marigold for instance owes

its name to Mary. From then on, it was believed to be suitable to picture the Garden of Eden

with flowers in it.

Because of such adjustments on the part of the Church and the recovered interest for

flowers of popular culture, by the twelfth century, they could be found in western European

gardens, in literature and in architecture once more.

52

The attitude toward flowers in popular culture was still being influenced by the model that the remaining

Roman architectural and literary works provided the people with. 53

See Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers, pp. 155-156.

26

2.2.5. The Renaissance and the return to nature

The time of the Renaissance (from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century) involved a

gradual cautious step away from the doctrines of the church and a revaluing of secular life, or

at least a gradual separation of both spheres. Nature became an important aspect of life again,

after it had been looked down on in previous centuries.

As a result of the combination of a return to nature and a re-appreciation of luxury and

Roman models, flowers started to occupy a more prominent place in the arts and in daily life.

In Renaissance Europe, flowers were even displayed inside the house and used at secular

celebrations. Artists tried to integrate secular elements in religiously inspired works. The

genre of still life painting became a well-liked one and it included the painting of flowers. It

flourished especially in Flanders and the Netherlands around the seventeenth century.

The research in the field of botanical knowledge expanded starting from the sixteenth

century. Texts on the subject were published and they also contributed to the increasing

presence of plants in the landscape as well as in the arts. Flowers were no longer grown

exclusively in royal courts and monasteries; gardening was increasingly within reach of the

bourgeoisie too.

Especially in England during the Tudor period54

the popularity of growing flowers

increased. Flowers were much wanted for their aesthetic qualities and for their fragrance. This

demand brought with it a whole new line of business throughout Europe, with professional

gardeners, flower shops, books on the subject of flowers and the import and export of

varieties of plants.

By the time of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century, it seemed as if nature and

flowers along would disappear into the background in favour of the focus on humanism.

However, even then, flowers were still used in literature. In texts on social issues for instance,

flowers were used to express human characteristics.55

54

The Tudor period is the denomination for those years in which members of the Tudor dynasty ruled in

England, namely from 1485 to 1603. See Michael Alexander, A History of English Literature, p. 75. 55

See Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 60.

27

2.2.6. Nineteenth-century flower-mania in the shape of a ‘language of flowers’

In a discussion of the nineteenth century in particular, one can not get away from the

role of flowers in the then society, as Goody claims. When picturing the nineteenth-century

world, people often seem to associate it with the so called „language of flowers‟ books.

Indeed, as Goody writes, flowers seem to have been omnipresent in nineteenth-century

Western Europe, and he adds weight to this impression by mentioning examples in the

following excerpt:

In art there was the middle-class lady with her easel, the classical subjects of Alma-Tadema, the

medieval romances of the Pre-Raphaelites, the perfection of late Victorian English water colourists

and above all the vigorous sensations of the Impressionists. This was the era of horticultural

societies, the flower shows and competitive displays, of the universal gardener and of the literary

garden into which Tennyson invited Maude. So much took place with flowers and gardens that for

Baudelaire flowers became evil symbols of the world he had rejected.56

It is in the context of this increased enthusiasm for flowers that one has to fit the

development of a new type of book that dealt with the symbolism surrounding flowers. In the

areas of religion, literature and painting, and in daily life, flowers had already been endowed

with particular symbolic meanings. In the nineteenth century, this was taken one step further.

Several books were published which were intended to introduce people in the so called

„language of flowers‟. The authors presented the readers with „a set of highly formalised lists

of meanings together with a whole semiotic analysis of the „language‟‟.57

Seaton writes that it

was „a popular, commercially successful development of the period‟s feelings about

flowers.‟58

Goody uses the word „language‟ between quotation marks in this context because the

„language of flowers‟ is very much constructed. The alphabetical lists in books on this topic

56


Alma-Tadema was a nineteenth-century Dutch-British painter fascinated with antiquity. Alfred Tennyson is

considered to have been the leading poet of the Victorian age. His poem Maud (Goody mistakenly writes the

name as „Maude‟) appeared in 1855. Charles Baudelaire was a nineteenth-century French poet. In 1857, his

collection of poems entitled Les fleurs du mal (The flowers of evil) was published. See Matthew, H.C.G. and

Brain Harrison, eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 24

June 2007. (http://www.oxforddnb.com); Michael Alexander, A History of English Literature, pp.262-265. 57

See Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers, p. 232. 58


28

are an attempt to order common usage, and while such formalisation can help to clarify, in the

case of the „language of flowers‟, it rather complicated the whole thing. The reasons

according to Goody are „[the disregard of] contextual usage and [the choice of] one symbolic

equivalence‟ as well as „[the construction of] significances for flowers that had none before

[…] to fill empty boxes‟.59

Consequently, despite the success of the genre, it was not able to

become the standard way of dealing with flowers. Seaton writes that in her research, she has

found „almost no evidence that people actually used these symbolic lists to communicate

[…]‟.60

In everyday life, literature and painting, preference was given to a more practical

symbolism of flowers that depended on contextual aspects. In Goody‟s words:

[…] the books refer to a single aspect of flower behaviour and the actual symbolism of flower use

is much more fragmentary, localised and complex.61

The origins of the belief that there was such a thing as an actual „language of flowers‟

have to be traced back to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who visited Turkey near the

beginning of the eighteenth century. In the letters she wrote in that period, she mentions how

in the East, people corresponded by means of exchanging objects, among which were flowers,

when they wanted to pass on confidential messages to each other. About a century later, an

Austrian expert of the Orient by the name of Hammer, indicated that this way of

communication was only practised by women living a secluded life in harems and mainly as a

pastime.

At the time, Lady Montagu‟s reports nonetheless instigated the conviction of some

people in the West that they had „discovered‟ a way of expressing a wide range of meanings

by means of flowers and soon after books on the topic were printed. One of the earliest

versions of this genre is generally presumed to be the one written by Charlotte de Latour,

which was distributed in Paris in 1819.

Charlotte de Latour was a pseudonym for Louise Cortambert and her work, entitled

Langage des fleurs, started off the whole tradition. Basically, the larger part of the book

consists of a list of meanings and the flowers, needed to communicate them, and vice versa: a

list of flowers and their accompanying meanings. In this way, the book takes the form of a

sort of dictionary. A set of guidelines for modifying the meanings was also included. If a

particular flower meant one thing, one could convey the opposite meaning by holding the

59




29

flower upside down or by removing the leaves. Colour too could „[alter] the basic symbolism

of the flower‟.62

In presenting the material in this way, de Latour / Cortambert had in mind a

means of communicating in secret between men and women. There was not much similarity

left between these associations and their so called Eastern origins.63

Goody calls our attention to the fact that, leaving aside the status of these „formalised

attributions of symbolic meaning [to flowers]‟64

for the time being, there is something

paradoxical in the way the symbolic meanings in the „language of flowers‟ were conceived by

this generation of writers. The meanings were said to be at the same time secret, so they could

be used for private messages, and yet universal, and by this claim the authors conveyed the

validity of the listing of their meanings.

The authors and readers of the books under discussion apparently were not the least bit

concerned about this inconsistency, judging by the popularity of the genre among all classes.

The de Latour-version was printed time and again, it was translated for an English and

German public and it inspired the publication of numerous comparable volumes.65

Some

served as instruction manuals, putting more emphasis on the scientific botanical aspects of the

subject (the intended audience for language of flower books were mostly women and botany

„had been considered to be the most suitable of the sciences for women to study since the late

eighteenth century‟66

); other volumes were religiously inspired ones and saw the contents of

this sort of book as an ideal way of bringing across moral issues within the context of floral

symbolism. The latter type of book belongs to the category of the „sentimental flower book‟,

according to Seaton:

The sentimental flower book is one that does not treat flowers in botanical (scientific) or

horticultural (practical) terms, but rather in terms of sentiment, feeling, and association.67

62

See Claire Powell, The Meaning of Flowers. A Garland of Plant Lore and Symbolism from Popular Custom &

Literature. (Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1979), p. 14. 63

See Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers. A History, p. 37.

Seaton writes that there are important differences between the meanings of flowers in the East and the West.

Roughly speaking, the „[sets] of meanings in Western culture‟ revolve around religion and love, while in the

East, „meanings concern living a long and prosperous life‟. 64


de Latour‟s work and the works inspired by it even reached the United States of America, where they were

somewhat adapted to fit into the American scene, although many followers of the genre kept including European

plants. For a discussion of flower books in nineteenth-century America, see also Annie Merrill Ingram,

“Victorian Flower Power. America‟s floral women in the nineteenth century.” Common-Place. The Interactive

Journal of Early American Life, 7:1 (2006). Ed. Edward G. Gray. 01 July 2007. (http://www.common-

place.org/vol-07/no-01/ingram) 66



30

Goody writes that traces of the „language of flowers‟ field of study are to be found in

other areas of life at the time, although it was not „widely accepted in anything like its

entirety‟.68

Many authors and painters, as previously mentioned, attributed particular values to

the flowers in their works, but not to the extreme extent of involving them into a whole

linguistic system. Goody gives a few examples of French prose and poetry. Honoré de Balzac,

the nineteenth-century French fiction writer, for instance, was following the fashion by

making the protagonist in his novel Le Lys dans la vallée express his love for his already

married beloved by composing bouquets she had to „decode‟. Nineteenth-century French

poets, like Victor Hugo and Stéphane Mallarmé, also incorporated a „language of flowers‟ in

their verses, although, according to Goody, this may also have been the result of the general

interest in Nature in the era of Romanticism.

In English poetry too, references to the genre crept into the verses. Powell names some

examples in her book The Meaning of Flowers.69

Thomas Hood70

wrote a poem actually

entitled „The Language of Flowers‟ in which he stated that „flowers could say what words

could not convey.‟71

Leigh Hunt72

too, praised the possibility of conveying love by means of

flowers in his poem „Love-Letters Made of Flowers‟.

Seaton adds that flowers were also used in English children‟s literature, in the shape of

personifications, and interprets this as a proof that using flowers in discussing particular

issues was an everyday phenomenon, since „children‟s literature is an area always reserved

for the tried and true, the totally acceptable.‟73

Already towards the end of the nineteenth century, the popularity of the „language of

flowers‟ genre decreased. A more realistic view on flowers emerged; flowers became

appreciated rather more for their aesthetic qualities and consequently „more serious‟74

studies

of flowers were published.

68


See Claire Powell, The Meaning of Flowers, pp. 16-19. 70

Thomas Hood was a nineteenth-century English poet and journalist. See Matthew, H.C.G. and Brain Harrison,

eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 24 June 2007. (http://www.oxforddnb.com). 71

See Claire Powell, The Meaning of Flowers, p. 17. 72

Leigh Hunt was a nineteenth-century English essayist, critic, journalist and poet. See Chapter 1. 73



31

2.2.7. The role of flowers in contemporary Western Europe

It is quite hard to give any sound overview of how flowers fit into Western European

societies nowadays, because their role is so tightly linked to specific contexts. That is why I

have chosen to make a selection of what is going on now in the realm of flowers to get some

general impression of their current functions.

On the state of the nineteenth-century legacy of the language of flowers in our days,

Goody has this to say:

Books specifically devoted to the Language of Flowers are still published in England and France,

partly as a sort of recherche du temps perdu, as a souvenir of the more leisurely life of the urban

bourgeoisie of Victorian and Edwardian England. In France, perhaps in England too, that life

exists in books of what we call, following the French, books of etiquette, in books which are

known as manuels du savoir-vivre.75

An example of a recently published book in the tradition of the „language of flowers‟ volumes

is Manuel du savoir-vivre d’aujourd’hui (1981) by Michèle Curcio. According to Goody it is

very much indebted to Charlotte de Latour‟s work.76

Flowers today are part of a consumerist Western culture, mostly as gifts and

decorations. The symbolic significance that people tend to attribute to particular flowers

depends on regional rather than wide-spread trans-national associations. As an example,

Goody mentions the chrysanthemum, which is only in some countries closely linked with

death.77

The meanings associated with the rose too, vary as it is used in different contexts. For

the most part it is still associated with love, but it can take on other meanings as well. In

France for instance, as Goody points out, it became emblematic for socialism in the domain of

politics.78

Yet another example of how meanings, matched with flowers, can vary in time and

place is the poppy. In twentieth-century Flanders it became a symbol for the dead of the First

World War. Thus, present meanings of flowers can be fixed, but then only for a particular

region.

75


The Edwardian period is the phrase used to denote the first decade of the twentieth century in British history. It

derives its name from the then king, Edward VII, the eldest son of Queen Victoria. See Michael Alexander, A

History of English Literature, p. 312. 76




32

2.3. Conclusion

The changes in attitudes toward plant life, as this chapter hopefully made clear, are

often brought about by changes in ideas on the level of societies. With regard to the

symbolism surrounding flowers, I think the main thing to remember is that in trying to

determine the significance of a particular flower or plant, one should take into account the

context in which it is used, since variations arise in both time and place depending on when

and where flowers are used. This does not have as a result that there are no fixed meanings at

all. Some flowers have acquired the same or a similar symbolism throughout Western Europe;

the symbols just do not take on the status of a „language‟ or „code‟ that is universally valid.

What is universal, in Seaton‟s words, is rather „[…] the love of flowers, the use of them in

ceremonies, and the association of them with seasons and rites of passage.‟79

79


33

Chapter 3: Women as flowers in the nineteenth century

3.1. Introduction

In the previous chapter, it was demonstrated that immense value was attributed to

flowers in nineteenth-century England. The literary scene was one of the domains in which

this interest in plant life was expressed.

I intend to devote this chapter to a phenomenon that is connected to the afore-mentioned

worship of flowers, namely the wide-spread fondness of associating women with flowers and

vice versa. I will first provide some theoretical background information as to how this typical

association came about and how it found expression in the nineteenth century. In a next

subdivision of the chapter, I will try to describe how nineteenth-century female poets dealt

with that convention. I selected four women poets and a poem by each of them in order to

exemplify the fact that some women tried to challenge the convention of using flower

imagery to represent women.

3.2. The close connection between women and nature

Beverly Seaton writes that the „language of flowers‟ books, which, as we have seen in

the previous chapter, were all around in the nineteenth-century Western world, were not just a

means of entertainment. In a more implicit and subliminal way, their function was to indicate

„the gentility of the women of the family‟.80

Seaton believes that attitudes toward persons can

be revealed by the presents that are given to them. Therefore, applied to the fact that

sentimental flower books were written and bought for women, she feels she can infer the

ways in which nineteenth-century societies thought about women. She concludes that in a

nineteenth-century perspective, the ideal woman was someone close to nature and someone

who spent a lot of time working with flowers in particular. It was exactly on this principle that

the authors of flower books relied: Victorian society „believed the floral kingdom to be

essentially the domain of Woman.‟81

80



34

Seaton calls the identification of flowers with women „typical‟.82

She writes that, in

general, „in modern centuries Western culture has typically identified women with nature‟.83

Women living in the country were consequently assumed to be „good women‟ whereas

women inhabiting cities were rather supposed to be „bad women‟. This distinction was part of

the overarching opposition between life in the country and life in the city, which was

commonly made in those days.

Most Victorians disliked city life and the values associated with it, and their aversion to

it renewed their appreciation of nature. Houghton expresses this as follows in his The

Victorian Frame of Mind:

Whether in fact or in art, the countryside [was] to save the „spiritual‟ values now being destroyed

in the unspiritual city. It [was] […] to rescue men from the infection of urban life – its utilitarian

aims, its greed, its hard selfishness, its wear and tear on body and soul […].84

Another source for the traditional association of women with nature was the Victorian

idea of separate spheres. The public world was the domain of men, whereas the private,

domestic world was the domain of women - at least ideally - for in reality the „separation‟ was

not so strict.85

So while men, in the usual course of events, were expected to be occupied with

cultural matters, women were considered to be largely responsible for the natural elements

within the borders of their estates.

It is against this background that the preference for and the positive values attached to

nature, and women close to nature, should be seen. Flowers in particular, Seaton continues,

[…] were seen as the most suitable aspect of nature to represent women, or to interact with them,

reflecting as they do certain stereotypical qualities of the female being: smallness of stature,

fragility of mind and body, and impermanence of beauty.86

According to Seaton, it was not only these physical similarities that contributed to the

connection of women with flowers. Another motivation might have been the abstract aspects

with which flowers are still traditionally associated, namely love and death. In Seaton‟s view,

82


See Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 17. 84 See Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870. (New Haven and London: Yale

University Press, 1978), p. 80. 85

See Annie Merrill Ingram, “Victorian Flower Power. America‟s floral women in the nineteenth century.” 86


35

these were precisely the aspects that were also central in the life of a nineteenth-century

woman:

Marriage and children were her typical fate as well as her most cherished goal; marriage should

bring love, and, unfortunately, children all too often brought death, either hers, in childbirth, or

their own.87

Because of these reasons, „flowers were regarded as a properly edited form of nature for

women‟.88

3.3. Women as flowers in nineteenth-century literature

The above-mentioned ideas inevitably found their way to poetry and literature. In

poems and novels, women were identified with flowers. In the „language of flowers‟ books,

for instance, the established link between women and flowers was expanded. As we have seen

in the previous chapter, flowers acquired particular symbolic meanings and among those were

the ones referring to personal qualities, such as beauty, charm and pride. They were meant to

describe people, with the emphasis on „the typical female rather than the male‟.89

In the preceding chapter, it was already mentioned that in children‟s literature, flowers

were presented as if they were people. In children‟s books too, it is exemplified that women

were associated with flowers. This is especially clear in the pictures that were included in the

books. In most of these images, plants and flowers are shown personified as women.90

In recent Swedish literature classes we have discussed nineteenth-century authors.

While reading their books, I paid special attention to possible applications of the above-

mentioned view on women. As a matter of fact, I encountered some examples which I

considered appropriate for mentioning in this section of the chapter. They illustrate that, as

was the case with the enthusiasm for flowers in the nineteenth century as discussed in the

previous chapter, the association of women with flowers was quite a wide-spread European

87





36

phenomenon.91

The examples also link up nicely with the topic of this part because

nineteenth-century Swedish society was quite comparable to the one in England at the same

time. The nineteenth century in Sweden is called the Oscarian age. It was named after Kings

Oscar I and Oscar II, who subsequently ruled the country in those days. The Oscarian age and

the Victorian age are frequently mentioned in the same breath and seen as each other‟s

equivalent.

I will begin with bringing up a telling excerpt from Pengar (Money), a book written by

Victoria Benedictsson and published in 1885. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist, a

young girl called Selma, dreams of becoming an artist. She was raised by her aunt and uncle

in a way that was somewhat different from the upbringing average girls were given. As a

result, people tend to see Selma as a bit of a tomboy. However, at the age of sixteen, she

decides to do what was expected of girls like herself in nineteenth-century Sweden and she

gets married. In the rest of the story, we can see how Selma has to change her ways in order to

live up to the expectations people had with regard to women‟s behaviour. One thing that was

expected of women, as was mentioned above, was that they were close to nature and regularly

spent time taking care of flowers inside or outside the house.

In the following excerpt, we find Selma decorating the table for dinner, as it was fitting

for a mistress of the house.

Men nu var allt i ordning, därför sysslade hon med blommorna.

“Astrar, bären stolt er krona!

här har mina rosor stått,”

ljöd det för hennes öron som en avlägsen, oartikulerad melodi. […]

Astrarna voro vackra i alla fall. Hon ordnade dem så att färgerna passade ihop, och buketten blev

riktigt praktfull.92

(Everything was now put in order, and so she occupied herself with the flowers.

“Asters, wear your crowns proudly! This is where my roses have stood”. It sounded like

91

As noted in the historical overview of the role of flowers in societies, new insights in botany could bring about

a renewed interest in plant life in general. The fact that Linnaeus, an important eighteenth-century innovative

botanist, lived in Sweden might be called upon to explain the popularity of flowers among eighteenth- and

nineteenth-century Swedish citizens. See Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 50. 92

See Victoria Benedictsson, Pengar (1885). Ed. Karin Westman Berg. (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Natur och

Kultur, 1997), p. 162.

37

a distant, unarticulated melody in her ears. […] In any case, the asters were beautiful.

She ordered them so that the colours matched, and the bouquet became really lovely.)93

The poem „The Ministry of Flowers‟ by the American poet Lydia H. Sigourney

connects surprisingly well with this scene of Selma arranging flowers. This poem was

published in a volume that consisted entirely of flower poems and that was entitled The Voice

of Flowers (1846). The poem underscores again that women and flowers were thought of as

inseparable:

The matron fills her chrystal vase

With gems that Summer lends,

Or groups them round the festal board

To greet her welcome friends,

Her husband‟s eye is on the skill

With which she decks his bower,

And dearer is his praise to her

Than earth‟s most precious flower.94

The next moment, however, it becomes clear that Selma still has not completely

internalized the common female conduct.

Hon skakade på huvudet för att bli den kvitt! Herre Gud, skulle hon nu bli sentimental med! Och

hon avskydde poesi.

[…]

Hon drog buketten ur vasen, som om det varit en fiends avhuggna huvud hon hållit tag i, och med

sammanbitna tänder öppnade hon fönstret och kastade den söndersmulad och förstörd ut för

vinden.

Blommor … tillgjordhet… fraser! Bort med det! – kan det vara så svårt att hålla sig nykter?95

(She shook her head to get rid of it [the melody]! Dear God, was she going to become

sentimental too, now! And she had a horror of poetry. […] She pulled the bouquet out of the

vase, as if she had got hold of the chopped-off head of an enemy and, gritting her teeth, she

opened the window and threw it out, crumbled and smashed up. Flowers … artificiality …

phrases! Away with them! – can it be so hard to remain realistic?)

93

I attempted to translate this and the next passage myself as well as I could and as true to the original Swedish

text as possible. 94

See Lydia H. Sigourney, The Voice of Flowers. (Hartford, CT: Parsons, 1846), quoted in Beverly Seaton, The

Language of Flowers, p. 4. 95

See Victoria Benedictsson, Pengar, pp. 162-163.

38

This excerpt is, in my opinion, a nice illustration of what one of the standard tasks of

women was considered to be and why Selma in Pengar is seen by her friends, family and

acquaintances as anything but typically feminine. By dismissing once more the conventional

feminine manners, she acknowledges to herself that she still has trouble with behaving as

people think she ought to. Her learned behaviour is not yet, and never will be, natural to her.

Next to Victoria Benedictsson, among those we read, I found two more nineteenth-

century Swedish authors who made use of flower imagery in describing their female

characters. One of them is Victor Rydberg. He wrote Singoalla in 1857 and in this book, he

compares the female protagonist, who is named in the title, explicitly to a flower. The male

protagonist looks at the gypsy woman and thinks to himself that she looks like „en nyss

utvecklad ros, frisk af morgondagg‟.96

(a newly developed rose, fresh because of the morning

dew). Here we find a male author making his male protagonist equal a woman with a flower.

Women authors, too, however, made use of such comparisons. Fredrika Bremer did it on

several occasions in her book Famillen H***, which was first published in 1830. The female

speaker brings into play flower images when she is referring to her women acquaintances.

The most popular flower seems to be the rose. In the book, we can find such phrases as „hon

var […] en ros i sin fulla blomma‟97

(she was a rose in full bloom), „en ung flicka [med]

rosenröda kinder‟98

(a young girl with rose red cheeks), „Emilia och Julie rodnade, som Juni-

rosor‟99

(Emilia and Julie blushed like June roses) and „han […] svärmade omkring Herminas

boning, som bi kring blomma‟100

(he swarmed around Hermina‟s house like a bee around a

flower).

3.4. Women as flowers in nineteenth-century poetry by women

The poetesses (as women poets were called in Victorian times101

) I will mention below

also connected the female figures in some of their verses with particular flowers. However, by

employing the typical imagery, and this is maybe a little paradoxical, they searched to

question it. They used conventional metaphors and moulded them according to their own

96

See Victor Rydberg, Singoalla (1857). (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag, 1947), p. 57. 97

See Fredrika Bremer, Famillen H*** (1830). Ed. Åsa Arping. (Stockholm: Svenska Vitterhetssamfundet,

2000), p. 8. 98

See Fredrika Bremer, Famillen H***, p. 25. 99

See Fredrika Bremer, Famillen H***, p. 31 100

See Fredrika Bremer, Famillen H***, p. 122. 101 See Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry. Poetry, poetics and politics. (London and New York: Routledge,

1993), p. 321.

39

perspective. In that way they challenged the system to some extent. Indeed, as Gilbert and

Gubar state in their work The Madwoman in the Attic, „[female authors] seem […] to have

found it necessary to act out male metaphors in their own texts, as if trying to understand their

implications.‟102

They see this as part of a struggle for freedom in both life and literature:

Both in life and in art, we saw, the artists we studied were literally and figuratively confined.

Enclosed in the architecture of an overwhelmingly male-dominated society, these literary women

were also, inevitably, trapped in the specifically literary constructs of what Gertrude Stein was to

call « patriarchal poetry ». For not only did a nineteenth-century woman writer have to inhabit

ancestral mansions (or cottages) owned and built by men, she was also constricted and restricted

by the Palaces of Art and Houses of Fiction male writers authored. We decided, therefore, that the

striking coherence we noticed in literature by women could be explained by a common, female

impulse to struggle free from social and literary confinement through strategic redefinitions of self,

art, and society.103

The tradition of comparing women with flowers was already berated by Mary

Wollstonecraft at the end of the eighteenth century.104

In her A Vindication of the Rights of

Woman, first published in 1792, Wollstonecraft argued for female independence on all levels.

In her own life, she proved herself to be consistent with the feminist ideas she proclaimed,

since she was economically independent and she did not get married at an early age, although

that was the most common and safe thing to do in her days.

In her groundbreaking work on the role and rights Wollstonecraft had in mind for

women in her time, there are a few passages in which she scornfully refers to the tradition of

equalling women with flowers. In Wollstonecraft‟s view, such comparisons are „pretty

feminine phrases […] men condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence‟ and she

thinks they are partly responsible for the difficulty women have „to obtain a character as a

human being‟.105

102

See Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic. The Woman Writer and the nineteenth-

century Literary Imagination. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), p. xii. 103

See Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, pp. xi-xii. 104

Mary Wollstonecraft made a living by writing, translating and reading for a London publisher. She married

William Godwin, with whom she had a daughter. The girl was called Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and later in

life, she would become famous herself by writing Frankenstein under the name Mary Shelley (her husband‟s

name). For a more elaborate account of Wollstonecraft‟s life, see Miriam Brody‟s „Introduction to the

Vindication.‟ Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Ed. Miriam Brody. (London:

Penguin, 1992). 105

See Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 82.

40

Wollstonecraft is especially upset by the fact that even women themselves have adopted

the tradition and take it to be normal:

[…] [a] false system of female manners [has] been reared, which robs the whole sex of its dignity,

and classes the brown and fair with the smiling flowers that only adorn the land. This has ever

been the language of men, and the fear of departing from a supposed sexual character, has made

even women of superior sense adopt the same sentiments.106

In a footnote, Wollstonecraft adds to the above assertion an example of a poem written by a

woman in which a lady is compared to flowers. The poem starts off like this and then the

comparison is expanded:

Flowers to the fair: to you these flowers I bring,

And strive to greet you with an earlier spring.

Flowers, SWEET, and gay, and DELICATE LIKE YOU;

Emblems of innocence, and beauty too.107

Wollstonecraft calls the comparison made by the writer, Mrs Barbauld,108

an „ignoble‟ one.109

It is Wollstonecraft‟s intention, as she writes in a further chapter, „[to] rouse [her] sex

from the flowery bed, on which they supinely sleep life away!‟110

In this phrase,

Wollstonecraft uses the comparison she dislikes herself for rhetorical purposes. In another

fragment, too, she makes use of such a comparison. She compares the fate of a particular

woman to the one of „the lily broken down by a plowshare‟.111

Her use of quotation marks in

this case indicates that she uses the comparison in an ironical way.

I think it should be noted, however, that, strangely enough, Wollstonecraft makes use of

the typical comparison herself on one occasion in her Vindication:

The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy

state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed

106

See Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 144. 107

Quoted in Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 144. 108

Anna Laetitia Barbauld was an eighteenth-century British writer, poet and editor. See Matthew, H.C.G. and

Brain Harrison, eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 19 May 2007. (http://www.oxforddnb.com). 109



See Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 267.

41

to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the

stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.112

(my italics)

I am not sure if she made this comparison on purpose and thus meant it to be ironic, or if she

was unaware of it (she did write the Vindication in a haste in only six weeks‟ time and she

assumedly started off with another project almost immediately after having sent off the

manuscript to be published113

).

The poets I will discuss below, like Mary Wollstonecraft, it would seem, were well

aware of the fact that the comparison of women with flowers had become a too traditional

one. Unlike Wollstonecraft, however, they did not completely dismiss the tradition on that

ground. Instead, in the poems I have selected, they too make use of flowers with reference to

the female protagonist. However, each one of the poets manipulated the convention into one

that fitted their own ideas of women.

3.4.1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is the author of the sonnet sequence Sonnets from the

Portuguese, which was published in the second edition of her volume Poems in 1850.114

She

was a highly estimated poet in both nineteenth-century England and the United States of

America.

In the last poem of the sequence of love sonnets, Barrett Browning uses floral imagery

to convey „a rather unconventional message‟.115

Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers

Plucked in the garden, all the summer through,

And winter, and it seemed as if they grew

In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.

So, in the like name of that love of ours,

Take back these thoughts, which here, unfolded, too,

112

See Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 79. 113 See Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, p. 37. 114

See Glenn Everett, “The Life of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” The Victorian Web. Ed. George P. Landow. 19

May 2007. (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ebb/ebbio.html). 115

See Marianne Van Remoortel, “(Re)gendering Petrarch: Elizabeth Barrett Browning‟s Sonnets from the

Portuguese.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 25:2 (2006), p. 262.

42

And which on warm and cold days I withdrew

From my heart‟s ground. (Indeed, those beds and bowers

Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,

And wait thy weeding; yet, here‟s eglantine,

Here‟s ivy!) – take them, as I used to do

Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.

Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true,

And tell their soul, their roots are left in mine.116

Van Remoortel states that with this closing motif:

[…] Barrett Browning encompasses the entire scope of Sonnets from the Portuguese and moves

beyond, to add a critical footnote to the precarious position of women writers in Victorian

society.117

On an individual level, the flower imagery suggests that, because of love, the „poetic

voice‟ of the speaker of the sequence „has gradually [been] nursed […] back to health‟.118

There are still „weeds and rue‟ in her heart that will have to be removed, but there is visible

improvement, since there is also eglantine growing there now. The flower, „a Victorian

symbol of poetry, […] mark[s] the speaker‟s […] emergence as a poet.‟119

On a more general level, Van Remoortel argues, the flowers and plants can be linked to

the status of women poets in the Victorian age. Eglantine, she writes,

[i]n this light […] stands for subjectivity and poetic independence, whereas ivy, with its twining

branches, represents the objectifying forces in literature and society that are always ready to

strangle the female speaker.120

In this poem, Barrett Browning makes use of conventional floral imagery and attributes

it to her female speaker. However, she does not apply the images in a conventional way. She

uses them to impart an unconventional idea in an implicit way.

116

Quoted in Marianne Van Remoortel, “(Re)gendering Petrarch: Elizabeth Barrett Browning‟s Sonnets from the

Portuguese.”, p. 262. 117








Portuguese.”, p. 262.

43

3.4.2. Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti, Dante Gabriel‟s youngest sister, was a prolific and important poet

herself in nineteenth-century England.121

In her poetry, she did not go along with the

conventional association of woman with nature. On the contrary, „there is always a critical

distance between nature and the speaker‟ in Rossetti‟s verses, as Helen Groth writes in her

essay “Victorian Women Poets and Scientific Narratives”.122

In the poem „By the Sea‟, for instance, rather than identifying herself with the natural

elements described in it, Rossetti‟s female speaker looks at them and appreciates them from

some distance.

Sheer miracles of loveliness

Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed:

Anemones, salt, passionless,

Blow flower-like; just enough alive

To blow and multiply and thrive.123

According to Helen Groth, „this distance is often expressed in Rossetti‟s work in terms

of acute alienation‟.124

Groth quotes part of the poem „The Thread of Life‟ to exemplify this

statement.

The irresponsive silence of the land,

The irresponsive sounding of the sea,

Speak one message of one sense to me: -

Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand…125

121

See Glenn Everett, “The Life of Christina Rossetti.” The Victorian Web. Ed. George P. Landow. 19 May

2007. (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/rossettibio.html). 122

See Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain, eds., Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian. Gender

and Genre, 1830-1900. (London and New York: Macmillan Press Ltd and St. Martin‟s Press, Inc., 1999), p. 331. 123

Quoted in Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain, eds., Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian, p.

331. 124

Helen Groth, “Victorian Women Poets and Scientific Narratives”, in Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain,

eds., Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian, p. 331. 125


331.

44

Rossetti‟s speaker voluntarily isolates herself from the natural world that surrounds her. Since

this female figure does not interact with her natural environment, and even „defines [her]self

against [it]‟126

, Christina Rossetti prevented her character from being equalled with nature.

3.4.3. Dora Greenwell

Yet another way in which women poets challenged conventional associations of women

with flowers is illustrated by the poetry of nineteenth-century British poet Dora Greenwell.

One of her poems is entitled „The Sun-flower‟ and is about a sunflower „[yearning] to be

united with the transcendent life-force of the sun, which it mirrors and worships.‟127

I lift my golden orb

To his, unsmitten when the roses die,

And in my broad and burning disk absorb

The splendours of his eye.

His eye is like a clear

Keen flame that searches through me; I must stoop

Upon my stalk, I cannot reach his sphere;

To mine he cannot stoop.128

Helen Groth interprets this poem in a metaphorical way. She explains that „the flower

[is] a metaphor for a powerful and desiring feminine subjectivity driven by ambitions that

transcend the boundaries of material existence.‟129

In other words, in view of this

interpretation, Greenwell follows the convention of equalling women with flowers, but she

modifies it by presenting her female figure as a subject (active) rather than an object

(passive). Groth even takes this reading a step further and claims the poem can be seen as a

political statement when she summarizes her understanding of the poem as follows:

126

See Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain, eds., Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian, p. 332. 127

See Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain, eds., Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian, p. 347. 128


347. 129

See Helen Groth, “Victorian Women Poets and Scientific Narratives”, in Isobel Armstrong and Virginia

Blain, eds., Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian, p. 347.

45

The conventions of the „language of flowers‟ and botanical observation are thus translated from

harmless and decorous cultural practices sanctioned as suitable for women into politically charged

statements about women‟s power to control and determine their own lives.130

Isobel Armstrong also quotes a poem by Greenwell in a chapter on how women poets

challenged conventional topics in poetry. The poem is called „Qui sait Aimer, sait Mourir‟

and it features the monologues of three personified flowers.

„I burn myself away!‟

So spake the Rose and smiled; „within my cup

All day the sunbeams fall in flame, all day

They drink my sweetness up!‟

„I sigh my soul away!‟

The Lily said, „all night the moonbeams pale

Steal round and round me, whispering in their play

An all too tender tale!‟

„I give my soul away!‟

The violet said; „the West wind wanders on,

The North wind comes; I know not what they say,

And yet my soul is gone!‟131

Traditionally, flowers / women celebrated in poetry, written by men, were hardly ever given

speech. Christina Rossetti observed in her preface to her poem „Monna Innominata‟ that

women such as Dante‟s Beatrice and Petrarch‟s Laura may have been immortalised through

poetry, but that they and other women before them were not able to express themselves.132

The Rose, the Lily and the Violet in this poem, however, are given the possibility of

communicating and are thus presented as „agents‟ instead of objects.133

Moreover, as

Armstrong writes, the flowers are „explicitly compared to the poet, who like them, breaks the

limit of selfhood, burning:‟134

„Oh Poet, burn away thy fervent soul!‟, as Greenwell writes in

130

See Isobel Armstrong and Virginia Blain, eds., Women’s Poetry, Late Romantic to Late Victorian, p. 347. I

would like to note that I am of the same mind as Groth as far as the interpretation of the flower / woman as „an

ambitious feminine subjectivity‟ is concerned. However, I am not inclined to agree with Groth‟s statement that

the poem refers to „women‟s power to control and determine their own lives‟. The flower / woman wants to

reach the sun, but it / she cannot do so. 131

Quoted in Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry, p. 353. 132

See Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry, p. 345. 133


See Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry, p. 353.

46

the last quatrain. By giving the characters in her poem a voice, Greenwell faces up to

convention and in that way achieves a poetic voice of her own as well.

3.4.4. Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was a nineteenth-century American poet. Even though, strictly

speaking, she might not be seen as a Victorian poet because the term „Victorian‟ implies

being British, I have chosen to include her in this chapter anyway. As a justification for my

choice, I would like to refer to Gilbert and Gubar, who noted in their preface to The

Madwoman in the Attic that in their studying women‟s poetry, they found „[a] coherence of

theme and imagery […] in the works of writers who were often geographically, historically,

and psychologically distant from each other.‟135

Moreover, in my opinion, Dickinson‟s use of

flower imagery also exemplifies how women poets could modify the women-as-flowers

tradition to their own purposes. In addition, there is a link between Dickinson and her

Victorian contemporaries in that she was influenced by the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett

Browning.136

Before having a closer look at a specific poem including a woman / flower comparison,

I think it might be helpful to linger for a moment with the issue of the female figure in

Dickinson‟s verses. In many of her poems the character is closely related to Dickinson

herself. I think one might say that it is a sort of „fictionalised‟ version of herself.

Gilbert and Gubar, in a chapter on Emily Dickinson in their Madwoman in the Attic,

make use of the term which critics before them have also used to define Dickinson‟s

technique of representing herself in poetry, namely „posing‟.137

They take this posing to have

been essential for Dickinson‟s poetic self-assertion, for it was the way in which she „could

metamorphose from a real person (to whom aggressive speech is forbidden) into a series of

characters or supposed persons (for whom assertive speeches must be supplied)‟.138

This

transformation allowed Dickinson „to free herself from social and psychological constraints

which might otherwise have stifled or crippled her art.‟139

135

See Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, p. xi. 136

See William E. Cain, ed., American Literature. Volume I. (New York: Longman, 2004), pp. 1304-1305. 137

See Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, p. 584. 138


See Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, p. 586.

47

Gilbert and Gubar write that, compared to earlier centuries, nineteenth-century female

authors increasingly identified themselves with their heroines. They claim that the same is

true for Dickinson:

[…] in the work of Emily Dickinson, […] we see the culmination of this process, an almost

complete absorption of the characters of the fiction into the persona of their author, so that this

writer and her protagonist(s) become for all practical purposes one - one “supposed person”

achieving the authority of self-creation by enacting many highly literary selves and lives.‟140

How, then, did Dickinson specifically represent her heroine in her poetry? Gilbert and

Gubar call to our attention that many critics have observed that Dickinson, early on, acted out

the part of a child and an invisible person. They see these as two of the above-mentioned

„supposed persons‟ in Dickinson‟s work. She described her fictionalised self as somebody

small, and modest, like a mouse, or a daisy. Dickinson in this way, in Armstrong‟s words,

projects herself into roles.141

Armstrong explains why women poets took to such a technique:

[…] by using a mask a woman writer is in control of her objectification and at the same time

anticipates the strategy of objectifying women by being beforehand with it and circumventing

masculine representations.142

Considering now the relationship between man and woman in Dickinson‟s poetry, at

first sight, as Gilbert and Gubar declare, one could see a parallel with Elizabeth Barrett

Browning‟s female figure who is subordinate to her husband. However, when looking at the

characters in Dickinson‟s work in more detail, they state the relationship to be rather similar

to the one between father and daughter or master and slave. Moreover, they find this

interpretation more in keeping with Dickinson‟s description of herself as a vulnerable little

flower or a child.

The attitudes expressed toward the dominant male in Dickinson‟s poems are said to be

of two kinds. On the one hand, there is a desire to get away from the dominance; on the other

hand, there is the need for approval and love.

140



See Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry, p. 326.

48

The poem „The Daisy follows soft the Sun‟ is an illustration of these ambivalent

feelings for the mysterious lover. In this poem Dickinson makes her female speaker compare

her relationship with her lover to the one between the sun and a flower. Gilbert and Gubar

note that:

”Daisy,” significantly, was one of Dickinson‟s own nicknames for herself, and […] she had begun

apprehensively to define herself as an ambivalently light-loving/sun-fearing flower.143

The flower needs the sun for energy and because of this dependence takes a submissive

position.

The Daisy follows soft the Sun –

And when his golden walk is done –

Sits shyly at his feet –

He – waking – finds the flower there –

Wherefore – Marauder – art thou here?

Because, Sir, love is sweet!

We are the Flower – Thou the Sun!

Forgive us, if as days decline –

We nearer steal to Thee!

Enamored of the parting West –

The peace – the flight – the Amethyst –

Night‟s possibility! 144

In this poem, we find an „[elaborate] imagery of male power and female powerlessness.‟145

The last line, however, brings in a twist to the pattern developed in the rest of the poem:

If we pursue all the metaphorical implications of Dickinson‟s feared and adored sun, […] “Night‟s

possibility” begins to seem a curiously ambiguous phrase. Since the solar god is withdrawn at

night, night‟s possibility, though triumphantly sensual for a human being, can only be

abandonment for a flower. At the same time, if night is the interval when the repressive solar

[Master] relaxes his constraints, its possibility for a poet may be self-assertion.146

143


Quoted in Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, p. 600. 145


See Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, p. 601.

49

In view of this, it becomes clear why Gilbert and Gubar declared that Dickinson managed to

„[reconcile] those apparent opposites of feminine submission and poetic assertion‟.147

Like the

three other poets mentioned above, Dickinson exploited the conventional comparison of

women to flowers in order to imply new ideas and to manifest herself both as a woman and a

poet.

3.5. Conclusion

I included this chapter in order to demonstrate that Dante Gabriel Rossetti was not the

only poet to match female figures to particular flowers in his poems. His style of presenting

women like that should be seen in the light of the Victorian context he lived in, because the

practice of combining women with flowers was generally accepted in those days.

In this chapter I have mentioned a few illustrative excerpts by contemporaries of

Rossetti, who also used this conventional association in their writings. By doing so they either

confirmed or criticized the traditional Victorian perspective of women and the habitual way of

representing women along with it. For, as we have seen in this section, women in the

nineteenth century were ideally closely connected to nature in general and to flowers in

particular. This general preference for nature had a lot to do with the increasing process of

urbanization and the suspicion it gave rise to in the hearts of many people.

As urbanization became a fact and as it was gradually appreciated by the end of the

nineteenth century, however, the view of women as strongly linked to nature was seriously

challenged. The increasing interest in machines was gradually replacing the earlier interest in

the natural world.148

As America and England became more and more urbanized in reality, rather than in anticipation,

women were no longer associated so much with the country and natural elements. New urban

standards of femininity began to develop (for one example, the dedicated shopper). The country

woman faded into the cultural background, and with her went the sentimentalization of her

environment.149

147

See Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, p. 587. 148 See Annie Merrill Ingram, “Victorian Flower Power. America‟s floral women in the nineteenth century.” 149


50

Chapter 4: Women, flowers and Dante Gabriel Rossetti

4.1. Introduction

As mentioned in the previous chapter, in the nineteenth century, women were

regularly compared to or associated with particular types of flowers. Dante Gabriel Rossetti

made use of this convention too, both in his poetry and his paintings.

In this chapter, I will try to determine the significance of Rossetti‟s use of flower images

in poems revolving around a female figure. I will try to show that Rossetti, by connecting his

female character with a specific flower, tells the reader something about her characteristics.

For, as William Sharp writes on Rossetti‟s use of symbolism, many of the poet-painter‟s

symbols are made to present the reader / spectator with information about a character‟s nature.

Indeed, as he wonders, „[h]ow could an artist better express, say, the personality of a

“Persephone”, than by placing in her hand the significant pomegranate?‟150

I intend to examine the use of floral symbolism in relation with the female figure in six

of Rossetti‟s poems, namely „Mary‟s Girlhood‟, „The Blessed Damozel‟, „Jenny‟, „Rose

Mary‟, „Body‟s Beauty‟ and „Soul‟s Beauty‟. I have chosen these particular poems because I

believe that, out of all of Rossetti‟s poems, they illustrate best that the flowers referred to

symbolize the central character‟s qualities. Moreover, the poems were written at different

stages in Rossetti‟s career, so that they will allow me to detect any possible variations in

Rossetti‟s use of flower symbolism in the course of years. Other works by Rossetti, poems as

well as paintings, will be included in the critical analysis of the six poems where and

whenever I believe them to impart relevant information.

This chapter consists of three subdivisions. I have grouped the poems on the basis of the

type of flower that is mentioned in them. I will begin each section with a short overview of

the symbolic meanings traditionally attached to that specific flower. Then, I will proceed with

the exploration of the use of the flower images in Rossetti‟s poems.

150

See William Sharp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 117.

51

4.2. Rossetti’s ‘good ladies’

4.2.1. The white lily151

The lily appears to have several, often contradictory, symbolic meanings. In the eyes of

the Greeks, the Romans and the people in the Eastern societies in ancient times, the lily

embodied fertility and life, because of the pistil that functioned as a phallic symbol.

The white lily, however, has from time immemorial, because of its colour, been

interpreted as a symbol of values such as innocence, purity, chastity, femininity and beauty.

This was the reason why, in the early Middle Ages (when the flower was brought to Europe

by the Crusaders), a connection was established between the white lily and Mary, the Holy

Virgin, by the Roman Catholic Church. The white lily is thus pre-eminently Mary‟s flower,

although other holy figures (for instance Saint Clara), also happen to be depicted with a lily as

a symbol of their purity.

Additionally and perhaps a little contradictorily, because the flower does not live very

long, it can also refer to transitoriness and death. This is the reason why the lily can be found

on graves, especially those of young women and children, in which case it also serves as a

sign of their purity and innocence.

4.2.2. ‘Mary’s Girlhood’

The poem entitled „Mary‟s Girlhood‟ is one of Rossetti‟s earliest poems and it consists

of two sonnets.152

Part one of the poem was written in 1848. The second part in 1849. The

first sonnet was revised by Rossetti in 1870 before it was re-published in his volume Poems.

As the subtitle of the poem, namely „(For a Picture)‟, indicates, it was meant to accompany a

painting made by Rossetti in the same year.153

In fact, the poem is to be found on the picture

frame of The Girlhood of Mary Virgin.154

The painting portrays four figures. Two women are occupied with embroidering a piece

of fabric inside a room. They are being watched by a small angel. Outside there is a man who

151

I rely on: Marcel De Cleene and Marie Claire Lejeune, Compendium van rituele planten in Europa. (Gent:

Uitgeverij Stichting Mens en Kultuur, 1999), pp. 1149-1162; Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers, pp. 156, 186,

284, 418; Claire Powell, The Meaning of Flowers, pp. 90-92; Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 43. 152

See Appendix, p. 84. 153

As a matter of fact, it was Rossetti‟s first painting; in the past he had only made drawings. 154

See Appendix, p. 126. (fig. 1)

52

is gardening. As we can infer from the title, the youngest woman represents the Virgin Mary

in her girlhood.

For more information on what is portrayed in the painting, we can turn to the poem

Rossetti wrote to accompany it. It is as if the poet manifests himself as a guide in a museum,

providing us with a detailed explanation while we are observing his work of art. He starts off

by pointing out to the reader / observer that it is „blessed Mary, pre-elect / God‟s Virgin‟ (ll.

1-2) who we are watching. He goes on telling us more about the young woman. He says she

lived a long time ago in „Nazareth of Galilee‟ (ll. 2-3). We learn that she respected her

family,155

that she was simple in mind and very patient (ll. 4-6). Other characteristics Rossetti

mentions are that she was faithful, wise and dutiful (ll. 6-8). In short, she was a virtuous

young woman. At this point, Rossetti makes a comparison between Mary and „an angel-

watered lily, that near God / Grows and is quiet‟ (ll. 9-10). By means of the comparison,

Rossetti underscores, in a more poetical way than in the previous lines, that Mary lived an

honourable and peaceful life.

In the last four lines of the first sonnet, Rossetti refers to what happened to Mary when

„the fulness of the time was come‟ (l. 14). In this first sonnet, he only hints at that event and

does not elaborate on it. In another painting, however, Rossetti picked up the important event

in the story of Mary‟s life, hinted at in this sonnet. Ecce Ancilla Domini was finished in 1850

and the subject of that painting is the angel Gabriel coming to Mary to tell her that she is

pregnant and that the child is God‟s son. That this is indeed the event Rossetti is giving a

preview to, becomes clear in the very last line of the poem (l. 28), in which he gives some

more explanation of what the future will be like for the young Mary.

In the second part of the poem, the poet returns to the objects depicted in the painting it

describes. This second sonnet opens with the line „these are the symbols‟ (l. 15). Apparently,

our „guide‟ now intends to clarify the meaning of the significant items in the painting. The

explanation, however, is not very elaborate for each symbol. Elizabeth Prettejohn writes that

„the sonnet specifies a one-to-one correspondence between each symbol and its symbolised

concept‟156

and that:

155

Rossetti does not mention the two other figures on the painting in the poem. They represent Mary‟s mother

and father; Saint Anne and Saint Joachim. See Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante

Gabriel Rossetti, p. 146. 156

See Elizabeth Prettejohn, Rossetti and his Circle, p. 12.

53

[w]ith a little knowledge, and a great deal of patience, the spectator can decode each symbol to

gain a wealth of information about the Virgin, her life, education, and virtuous character.157

In Dante Gabriel Rossetti, she provides us with the necessary extra information to make the

meaning of the depicted objects more understandable.158

Rossetti begins with the red cloth with the triangle on it (ll. 15-18). The triangle is

symbolic of the Holy Trinity. One point of it is left out because „Christ is not yet born‟ (l. 18).

It is followed by the books, representative of six of the seven virtues. The golden one, as

Rossetti tells us, stands for Charity. For the other virtues represented by the books, I turn to

Prettejohn. The blue one is for Faith, the green one for Hope, the yellow one for Prudence, the

white one for Moderation and the brown one for Strength. Since Christ is not born yet,

Righteousness is not included. Finally, the poet guides our perception to the briar and the

palm (ll. 23-24), which respectively represent Mary‟s sorrows and joys.

The only object of which the symbolic meaning is immediately clear is the flower. In

the painting, we can see it as the model for the figure in Mary‟s needlework. In the poem, the

Virgin is being compared to it. Rossetti explicitly states that the lily is a symbol of innocence

(l. 22). This interpretation of the meaning of the flower is in accordance with the traditional

one. The lily is a sign of innocence and, since Mary is compared to it in the first sonnet, her

innocent nature is highlighted.

In this poem, Rossetti draws on the traditional association between the white lily and

Mary. Hence, determining the symbolic meaning Rossetti attaches to the flower in question

and the reason why he attributes his female figure with it, is in the case of this poem not a

difficulty.

4.2.3. ‘The Blessed Damozel’

The poem „The Blessed Damozel‟159

is the best known of Rossetti‟s works and, like

„Mary‟s Girlhood‟, was also written by him at a young age. Scholars usually assume the date

of composition of the poem to be 1847-1848.160

It was published for the first time in The

157




Some uncertainty remains about the date. A copy of the manuscript survived and is dated 1847, but the

earliest version appears to have been lost.

54

Germ in 1850.161

Like „Mary‟s Girlhood‟, this poem is matched to a painting. However, this

time, Rossetti worked the other way around. The poem came about first in this case. It was

not until more than twenty years later, in the late 1870s, that he, at the insistence of friends

and patrons,162

completed two similar oil paintings to accompany it.163

The two main characters in the poem are the blessed damozel, who has died and gone to

heaven, and her lover, who is left behind mourning for her on earth. On the two paintings

based on the poem, these figures are depicted. The paintings faithfully show what is

mentioned in the poem. The division within the frame of the paintings suggests the separation

between the lovers. However, as Prettejohn observes, the frame, as it were, simultaneously

unites them.164

Julian Treuherz mentions that Edgar Allan Poe‟s poem „The Raven‟ was Rossetti‟s

inspiration for the subject of lovers being separated by death.165

Rossetti is said to have told

his friend Hall Caine in 1881 the following:

I saw that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do with the grief of the lover on earth, and so

I determined to reverse the conditions, and give utterance to the yearning of the loved one in

heaven.166

Rossetti‟s poem in turn inspired the French composer Claude Debussy in 1887 to write

his piece of music entitled La damoiselle élue.167

Jerome McGann notes moreover that „The Blessed Damozel‟ „later assumed a distinct

autobiographical dimension as the figure of the damozel opened itself to parallels with

Elizabeth Siddal [=Rossetti‟s wife]‟, who died in 1862.168

The first twelve lines of Rossetti‟s poem (which consists of one hundred and fifty lines

in total) are used to describe the damsel‟s outward appearances.

161

The Germ was the magazine run by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. See Chapter 1. 162


See Appendix, p. 127. (fig. 2a & 2b) 164


See Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 16.

Treuherz mentions that Rossetti had shown himself to be an admirer of the American author Poe with his

drawing of „The Raven‟ from 1846. Poe‟s poem had been published a year before that. It featured a male speaker

mourning over the loss of his beloved Lenore. See William E. Cain, ed., American Literature, pp. 786-792. 166

See Hall Caine, Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883), p. 284, quoted in

Jerome McGann, “The Blessed Damozel”. The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A

Hypermedia Research Archive. Ed. Jerome McGann. (Charlottesville: Institute for Advanced Technology in the

Humanities, 2000-2007). 11 Nov. 2006. (http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/1-1847.s244.raw.html) 167

See Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 114. 168

See Jerome McGann, “The Blessed Damozel”.

55

The blessed Damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of Heaven:

Her blue grave eyes were deeper much

Than a deep water, 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

On the neck meetly worn;

And her hair, lying down her back,

Was yellow like ripe corn.

(„The Blessed Damozel‟, ll. 1-12)

Stanzas five to eight form a description of the young woman‟s surroundings. She is now in

„God‟s house‟ (l. 25) along with others and the earth is very far beneath her. The damozel has

somewhat distanced herself from the others and is absorbed in thought. Throughout a large

part of the rest of the poem, and starting from stanza eleven, the woman‟s monologue is

rendered. We learn that she is waiting for her lover to come to her. Although to the damsel it

seems as if only one day has passed in heaven (l. 13-14), „she is impatient for his arrival.‟169

She expresses the hopes and doubts she has while waiting. She is quite sure that her lover will

come (l. 62) because they have both been praying (ll. 63-65). However, there is still some

doubt, as is clear from her question what if she should feel afraid (l. 66). Roper Howard notes

that it prepares the reader for the damsel‟s tears in the last stanza of the poem.170

The damsel

then fantasises about how she and her lover will spend their days when they will be reunited

in heaven (ll. 67-90; 97-132). They will bathe, lie in the shadow and with everybody‟s

approval, they will happily and peacefully be together. „Yea, verily; when he is come / we

will do thus and thus‟, the damsel decides (ll. 133-134). It seems as if the damsel at this point

has reassured herself that she will have things the way she wants them, and she smiles (l.

144). „Her hope has overcome her doubt‟, as Roper Howard writes.171

In the very last stanza

of the poem, however, the young woman „cast[s] her arms along / The golden barriers, / And

169

See Ronnalie Roper Howard, The Dark Glass, p. 46. 170


See Ronnalie Roper Howard, The Dark Glass, p. 46.

56

[lays] her face between her hands, / And [weeps]‟ (ll. 147-150), proving that her doubts and

fears are still there. In Roper Howard‟s words „her hope breaks down and we are left with a

picture of her weeping.‟172

The perspective of the young man the damsel is longing for is given in the stanzas that

are printed in parentheses.173

In the fourth stanza of the poem, his point of view is rendered

for the first time. Whereas to the damsel it seems as if she has been in heaven for no longer

than a day, „in terms of earthly time, […] it has been ten years‟174

(l. 19). He imagines he feels

her hair on his face, but it turns out to be leaves that are falling. However, it seems as if the

male speaker really can see and hear the blessed damsel. The sixteenth and seventeenth stanza

of the poem appear to be his reaction to the woman‟s daydreaming. That he answers to what

the damsel is saying is clearer in Rossetti‟s 1870 revised version of the poem (published in

Poems):

(Alas! We two, we two thou say‟st!

Yea, one wast thou with me

That once of old. But shall God lift

To endless unity

The soul whose likeness with thy soul

Was but its love for thee?)

(„The Blessed Damozel‟, 1870, ll. 97-102)

The lines in parentheses in the last stanza also indicate that the man can see and hear his lover

in heaven: „(I saw her smile)‟ (l. 145) and „(I heard her tears)‟ (l. 150), he says. However, as

Roper Howard notes, „[a]cross the vast distance between heaven and earth [the lovers]

communicate, but the communication is only partial, for there is no evidence that she also

sees and hears him.‟175

This „make[s] the separation even more poignant.‟176

Mindful of the story of the poem, I would now like to turn to the function of the „three

lilies in [the damsel‟s] hand‟ (l. 5). The figure of the blessed damsel is presented as someone

pious. She believes her wish for her lover to come, will be heard because, as she asks, „have I

172


Armstrong observes that the use of parentheses underscores the lover‟s separation from the damsel. See

Isobel Armstrong, Victorian Poetry, p. 246. See also Tirthankar Bose, “Rossetti‟s The Blessed Damozel.”

Explicator 53:3 (1995), p. 151. 174




57

not prayed in solemn heaven?‟ (l. 63). Her lover describes her as having „[a] wise simple

mind‟ (l. 91). The same characteristic was attributed to the Virgin Mary in line five of

„Mary‟s Girlhood‟. Another one of her virtues is that she is moderate. The only thing she will

ask of „Christ the Lord‟ is for herself and her lover to be at peace, as when they were on earth

(ll. 127-132). Her clothing is sober and is only adorned with „a white rose of Mary‟s gift‟ (l.

9). As already mentioned in chapter two, the white rose, next to the lily, is the flower typically

associated with Mary. Mary has given the damsel one, so now the latter is linked to the Mary-

rose herself. This gives the idea that the young lady‟s character is similar to that of the Virgin.

In view of all this, I would draw the conclusion that the image of the three lilies which

„[lie] as if asleep / Along her bended arm‟ (ll. 53-54) is used as an additional allusion to the

damsel‟s innocent and pure personality.

4.3. Rossetti’s ‘bad ladies’

4.3.1. The rose177

As already hinted at in chapter two, the meanings attached to the rose, too, can vary in

time and place. In the Western world, the rose is the flower which is most often used as a

symbol. Throughout the ages it has gathered a wide range of symbolic meanings.

In antiquity, the flower occupied a special place in mythology. It was dedicated to

various gods which were personifications of widely divergent concepts, such as love, war,

peace, youth and nature. The Greeks and Romans also used this „queen of flowers‟178

for

funerals. In this context the rose was attributed the meaning of rebirth (according to the

Greeks, the rose arose from the blood of Adonis) and daybreak. The practice of leaving roses

on graves is believed to have been brought to Britain by the Romans. In Wales, roses were put

on graves until the nineteenth century. However, roses were not only used at funerals.

Marriages too, were seen as occasions for using them. The reason for this is that the rose in

addition was associated with happiness. This is now still reflected in such expressions as „his

path is strewn with roses‟. Yet another story from Greek mythology is responsible for the

concept of taciturnity and secrecy that was also attributed to the rose in ancient times. The

177

I rely on: Marcel De Cleene and Marie Claire Lejeune, Compendium van rituele planten in Europa, pp. 922-

949; Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers, pp. 56, 67-68, 88-89, 156, 293; Claire Powell, The Meaning of

Flowers, pp. 70, 116-120; Beverly Seaton, The Language of Flowers, p. 43. 178

See Marcel De Cleene and Marie Claire Lejeune, Compendium van rituele planten in Europa, p. 924.

58

story is about how Eros gave Harpocrates the very first rose, in order to prevent the latter

from spying and eavesdropping on Eros‟ mother, the goddess Aphrodite. This story underlies

the use of the expression „sub rosa‟, which is still is used to denote a conversation that is

supposed to be private.

However, the rose has in most times and places been interpreted as a sign of love and

beauty. This was also the case in antiquity. The rose was particularly the attribute of

Aphrodite with the Greeks and of Venus with the Romans, equivalent goddesses of love and

beauty. An open rose in those days, then, embodied a grown-up woman, while the rosebud

was the symbol for a young girl that had not yet attained her full potential in beauty.

In Christianity, the rose was at first associated with the pagans but eventually it was

used in diverging ceremonies such as births and funerals. During the Middle Ages, the Virgin

Mary was often compared to a rose.179

The thorns of the rose were used to represent Adam‟s

children, who, unlike Mary, were not born without original sin. The thorns then also signified

the result of that sin, namely suffering and sorrow. In a secular context, the rose retained its

meaning of love and beauty. The rose (the eglantine) was praised as the most beautiful of all

flowers by poets, which in turn gave rise to the association of the rose with poetry.

The colour of the rose has always been a feature that could modify its meaning. When

the rose was white, for the most part it symbolized innocence and chastity. When it was red, it

was rather a symbol of beauty and passion.180

4.3.2. ‘Jenny’

The first version of the poem entitled „Jenny‟ was completed in 1858.181

It was one of

the poems which were contained in the manuscript that was put into the coffin of Rossetti‟s

wife at her burial in 1862.182

When it was retrieved in 1869, Rossetti revised it with an eye to

having it published in Poems in 1870.

„Jenny‟ is quite a long poem (388 lines) and it is usually put under the category of the

dramatic monologue. In such poems the author makes a character soliloquize. The work of

179

In chapter two, the remark was already made that there was a rich flower symbolism revolving around the

figure of the Virgin Mary and that it was not without internal inconsistencies. 180

In a Christian context, however, as already noted in chapter two, the red-coloured rose was associated with

the blood of Christ and so became a symbol of martyrdom. This proves again that the symbolism attached to the

rose is quite complex and often even contradictory. 181

See Appendix p. 88. 182

See Chapter 1.

59

Rossetti‟s contemporary Robert Browning offers some outstanding examples of this type of

poem. He often made use of this sort of poem. His well-known „My Last Duchess‟ (1842), for

instance, has as its speaker a Duke who explains how he had his wife killed because he

thought she was too friendly with other men. The speakers are often „dissatisfied, possessive

or obsessive‟ lovers.183

In Browning‟s „Porphyria‟s Lover‟ (1846), too, a male protagonist is,

as it were, talking to the reader and confessing that he strangled his beloved.

In „Jenny‟, Rossetti‟s male figure communicates his reveries. We find the man sitting in

the room of the woman he has just met and spent the evening with. Jenny appears to be a

prostitute184

and the man her customer and she has now fallen asleep on his knees. While he is

waiting for her to wake up, he shares some of his thoughts about her with us in a monologue

of some length. Rossetti in his article „The Stealthy School of Criticism‟185

defended his

choice for the dramatic monologue, or as he calls it, „an inner standing point‟:186

The heart of such a mystery as this [=the theme of prostitution] must be plucked from the very

world in which it beats or bleeds; and the beauty and pity, the self-questionings and all-

questionings which it brings with it, can come with full force only from the mouth of one alive to

its whole appeal, such as the speaker put forward in the poem, - that is, of a young and thoughtful

man of the world.187

This poem by Rossetti is one of the few he wrote on a modern-day subject. The theme

of the prostitute was a much talked-of topic in those days and it found its way into painting

and literature too. Examples are William Holman Hunt‟s painting „The Awakening

Conscience‟ (1854), in which he depicts a prostitute and her client, and Augusta Webster‟s

poem „A Castaway‟ (1870), in which a prostitute talks about her past and present life.

As well as in „Jenny‟, Rossetti ventured upon the subject of prostitution in the painting

Found.188

Found is yet another composition Rossetti worked on for years and adjusted several

183

See Michael Alexander, A History of English Literature, pp. 265-266. 184

According to Bryan Rivers, Rossetti‟s contemporary readers would already have inferred this from the title.

The name „Jenny‟ (in those days pronounced as „ginny‟) was associated with prostitution for three reasons.

Firstly, the word „ginny‟ was a slang term for a tool thieves used to break into houses. A lot of prostitutes lived

with thieves or were thieves themselves. Another meaning attached to „ginny‟ also hinted at the theme of

prostitution. Rivers notes that prostitutes were known as heavy drinkers of gin. Finally, as Rivers writes, one

could interpret „Jenny‟ as the pet form of „Virginia‟, which was a popular pseudonym among French prostitutes

(many of whom came to London). See Bryan Rivers, “Rossetti‟s „Jenny‟.” Explicator 63:2 (2005), pp. 82-85. 185

„The Stealthy School of Criticism‟ (1871) was Rossetti‟s reaction to a review written by Robert Buchanan,

„The Fleshly School of Poetry‟. See Chapter 1. 186

See Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 332. 187

See Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “The Stealthy School of Criticism”, in Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings of

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 332. 188

See Appendix, p. 128. (fig. 3)

60

times. He conceived the idea in the early 1850s and by the time he died in 1882 the painting

was still not completely finished. The painting‟s depicted location is a street in London and it

portrays two people. There is a man trying to drag with him a woman who turns herself away

from him. As he did for many of his paintings, Rossetti wrote a poem with the same title to

accompany Found as late as in 1881.

„There is a budding morrow in midnight:‟ –

So sang our Keats, our English nightingale.

And here, as lamps across the bridge turn pale

In London‟s smokeless resurrection-light,

Dark breaks to dawn. But o‟er the deadly blight

Of Love deflowered and sorrow of none avail,

Which makes this man gasp and this woman quail,

Can day from darkness ever again take flight?

Ah! gave not these two hearts their mutual pledge,

Under one mantle sheltered „neath the hedge

In gloaming courtship? And, O God! to-day

He only knows he holds her; - but what part

Can life now take? She cries in her locked heart, -

„Leave me – I do not know you – go away!‟

(„Found‟, ll. 1-14)

The scene depicted in the painting and described in the poem is one of London at the break of

day, where a man and a woman are being confronted. The woman is a prostitute now living in

the city. She has been recognized by the man who is her former lover. She has fallen to her

knees out of shame and he is trying to hold her.189

However, the woman rejects his help and

tells him to leave, as we learn from the last line of the poem. According to Elizabeth Lee:

[t]he question of why she should resist him when his face is so contorted in pity and concern,

forces the viewer to look at the drover‟s calf in the background, trapped and struggling within a

web of restraints.190

189


See Elizabeth Lee, “Fallen Women in Victorian Art”. The Victorian Web. Ed. George P. Landow. 11 Nov.

2006. (http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/fallen.html)

61

Lee sees a parallel between the situation of the calf and that of the „fallen woman‟:

It seems that either the woman is too entangled in her life of sin or else she refuses to be caught in

the impositions of married life, represented in the net which holds the calf.191

„At any rate‟, she concludes, „Rossetti [in this work] problematizes the all-too-easy instant

condemnation of the fallen woman and her motives‟.192

In „Jenny‟, then, Rossetti deals with the same theme of prostitution in an alternative

way. The figure of Jenny is not given a voice and we only get to see her through the eyes of

the male speaker of the poem. In the representation of Jenny by the „I‟ of the poem, Rossetti

makes use of flower imagery. Both lilies and roses are connected to the figure of Jenny. In the

following paragraphs, I will look in more detail at the function the flowers fulfil in the context

of this poem.

The poem seems to start off cheerfully when the speaker begins with the rhyme and the

alliterations „Lazy laughing languid Jenny, / Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea‟ (ll. 1-2).193

However, these first lines already indicate the way in which the speaker will talk about Jenny

and her life throughout most of the rest of the poem. In my opinion, that is in a rather ironic

and condescending way, judging from such phrases as „the thoughtless queen / Of kisses‟ (ll.

7-8), „whose person or whose purse may be / The lodestar of your reverie?‟ (ll. 20-21), and „is

there hue or shape defin‟d / In Jenny‟s desecrated mind […]?‟ (ll. 163-164). The speaker

thinks of Jenny as someone who is not too bright and who is only interested in money. In the

last paragraph of the poem he even admits that he „mock[s] [her] to the last‟ (l. 380). We are

made to believe that the speaker himself is a person who is completely different to Jenny. He

presents himself as an intellectual: „This room of yours, my Jenny, looks / A change from

mine so full of books‟ (ll. 22-23). However, in spite of his inclination to look down on Jenny,

he uses terms of endearment to address her, such as „sweetheart‟ (l. 35) and „my dear‟ (l. 388).

Moreover, some of his remarks suggest that he does seem to pity her, for instance when he

imagines those men „Who, having used [her] at [their] will, / [thrust] [her] aside as when I

dine / I serve the dishes and the wine‟ (ll. 86-88). The speaker himself treats her somewhat

191

See Elizabeth Lee, “Fallen Women in Victorian Art”. 192

See Elizabeth Lee, “Fallen Women in Victorian Art”. 193

Jan Marsh notes that „Jenny‟ is „a name that used to rhyme more closely with „guinea‟‟. See Jan Marsh, ed.,

Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 489.

62

differently. At the end of the poem, he does not wake her up, puts some cushions under her

head as a surrogate for his knee, which she was resting on, and when leaving the room, he

leaves behind some money (ll. 332-338). I think the speaker‟s attitude towards Jenny might

therefore probably best be defined by something in between contempt and pity. Roper

Howard detects the same „tendencies‟194

in his monologue. However, she seems to read the

poem rather as a picture of the change in the man‟s attitude from mockery to sympathy, when

she writes that „the speaker, thoughtlessly and casually intending to spend the night with a

streetwalker, comes to a new awareness.‟195

She claims that his awareness „includes the

complexity of the problem of prostitution without simplification or sentimentality, and

without the pretense of having the answer.‟196

Returning, then, to the first paragraph of the poem, the speaker is looking at Jenny while

she is resting on his knees. Flower imagery is used for the first time. The conventional image

of a woman as a flower is given a turn.197

If the speaker only takes into consideration what

Jenny looks like, „fair‟ (l. 7), with „eyes […] as blue skies‟ (l. 10) and „hair […] [as] countless

gold‟ (ll. 10-11), he is able to compare her to „a fresh flower‟ (l. 12). In paragraph thirteen and

fourteen, too, when he is looking at her, „so young and soft and tired; so fair, / With chin thus

nestled in [her] hair, / Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue / As if some sky of dreams shone

through‟ (ll. 173-176), she looks like any other woman. Soon after, however, remembering

the life she is living, he changes his mind and calls her a „poor flower‟ (l. 14). He describes

her in a metaphorical way as a flower from which the petals have been torn and which soon

will have withered completely (ll. 14-15). The speaker feels that there is not much left of the

„fresh flower‟ that Jenny must once have been. Her harsh existence has marked her and

sooner or later nothing much will be left of her.

In paragraph seven, Jenny reminds the speaker of a flower for the second time. He

notices her hand, and it is like a lily to him (l. 97). He says that it would have been „more

bless‟d / If ne‟er in rings it had been dress‟d / Nor ever by a glove conceal‟d!‟ (ll. 97-99). In

the speaker‟s opinion, Jenny would have been happier and more beautiful if only she could

have kept her naturalness instead of having to doll herself up.

The resemblance of Jenny‟s hand with the lily leads the speaker to the expansion of the

flower imagery in the next paragraph. The speaker thinks of the ease of lilies in a garden in

spring, which are taken care of and praised by the „husbandman‟ (ll. 107-108). He contrasts

194





63

their comfortable situation with another sort of ease, namely that of the flowers in a garden in

summer under a „new lord‟ (ll. 104-106). The garden in springtime, then, is a metaphor for

Jenny‟s life in the country in a previous stage of her life. The garden in summertime

represents Jenny‟s new life as a prostitute, in which she is enjoying the luxury she has

obtained.198

In this second garden, however, the lilies are „sickened unto death‟ (l. 110).

At the beginning of paragraph nine, the first person narrator of the poem asks Jenny if

her lilies are dead (l. 111). Since she is asleep, he does not really expect her to answer the

question and so he reacts to it himself. Yes indeed, he replies, her lilies are dead and their

„snow-white leaves are spread / Like winter on the garden-bed‟. (ll. 112-113). With the garden

in spring with lilies in it equalling Jenny‟s former life, and the garden in summer without lilies

equalling her present life, the lilies in this poem can equally be understood as a symbol of

innocence and purity.199

Jenny‟s lilies being dead then means that she has lost her innocence.

However, although Jenny‟s lilies are gone, the speaker notes that she still „had roses left

in May‟ (l. 114). Their leaves are „still red‟ (l. 119) and there are still buds that have yet to be

unclosed (l. 117). Roper Howard claims the red roses stand for Jenny‟s beauty,200

and I am

inclined to agree with her interpretation. The speaker seems to imply a warning when he says

that Jenny has to take care of her roses if she does not want them to die too (l. 116). If she lets

them wither, only „the naked stem of thorns‟ will remain (l. 120). Roper Howard thinks the

withered roses are a fitting image for Jenny‟s „inevitable, calamitous loss of youth and

beauty‟.201

I think in this context it is plausible that the thorns that will remain are, as is

traditionally the case, symbolic of the sorrow and sin Jenny will be left behind with.

In the following paragraph, the speaker dismisses his metaphors as „mere words‟ (l.

121). He tells himself that people like Jenny do not care about „roses‟ or „lilies‟. He thinks she

would probably only worry about bad health and poverty: „Sickness here / Or want alone

could waken fear‟ (ll. 122-123). However, the speaker believes that, once in a while, Jenny

too thinks about her current life and the one she left behind, „when there may rise unsought /

Haply at times a passing thought / Of the old days‟ (ll. 125-127). He imagines that Jenny in

those days „would lie in the fields and look / Along the ground through the blown grass‟ (ll.

130-131). At that time, the city with its „broil and bale‟ was „far out of sight‟ (l. 133) and she

only knew it from stories (l. 134), whereas now, she knows the city from first-hand

experience (l. 135). The opposition between the peaceful countryside and miserable city-life

198





64

that is presented here links on to the traditional view of natural and urban surroundings

mentioned in chapter three. Women living in the country, as opposed to the ones living in the

city, were supposedly more innocent. Since the speaker compares Jenny‟s hands to lilies,

perhaps he still sees in her something left of her former innocence.

Rossetti through the voice of his male character compares Jenny to a flower one last

time in the paragraph beginning with the verses „Like a rose shut in a book / In which pure

women may not look‟ (ll. 253-254). In this part the „I‟ of the poem is trying to imagine how

other, „pure women‟ (l. 254) see Jenny. In their perspective, as the speaker explains in the

first lines, Jenny might be like a rose enclosed in a book which they had better not read

because of its dishonourable contents. The „base pages‟ (l. 255) of the book, a metaphor for

Jenny‟s life as a prostitute, are crushing the rose she is represented by. The life Jenny is living

is damaging the beauty, and perhaps even the joy and the love which the rose can symbolize.

The speaker concludes that respectable women should stay away from women like Jenny.

Jenny is the rose they cannot touch in the following verses:

And so the life-blood of this rose,

Puddled with shameful knowledge, flows

Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose:

(„Jenny‟, ll. 264-266)

However, as the speaker tries, maybe other women see in Jenny something left of the

beautiful young girl she once was because the rose „still […] keeps such faded show / Of

when „twas gathered long ago‟ (ll. 266-267). Maybe the „crushed petal‟s lovely grain, / The

sweetness of the sanguine stain‟ (ll. 269-270) can make another woman sympathize with

Jenny: „Seen of a woman‟s eyes, [the „grain‟ and the „stain‟] must make / Her pitiful heart, so

prone to ache, / Love roses better for its sake‟ (ll. 271-273). At the end of the paragraph,

however, he concludes that even women do not pity women in Jenny‟s situation: „Only that

this can never be: - / Even so unto her sex is she‟ (ll. 274-275). Women as well as men see

Jenny not as a person but as an object or a number:

Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,

The woman almost fades from view.

A cipher of man's changeless sum

Of lust, past, present, and to come,

65

Is left.

(„Jenny‟, ll. 276-280)

In „Jenny‟, the function of the floral imagery seems to be, to underscore the difference

between Jenny‟s former life, in which she was a fresh lily, and the one she is living now, by

comparing her to a poor rose. Rossetti seems to have attributed conventional meanings to the

flowers. However, his use of the flowers is in this poem more elaborate and more

sophisticated than in his early poems „Mary‟s Girlhood‟ and „The Blessed Damozel‟.

4.3.3. ‘Rose Mary’

Rossetti composed „Rose Mary‟ in 1871, during the summer he lived with the Morris

family.202

The poem was laid aside for some eight years, until it was resumed in 1879 in order

to add the interlude passages. The completed poem was published in Rossetti‟s 1881 volume

of poems entitled Ballads and Sonnets.203

„Rose Mary‟ is a very long poem; it consists of nearly one thousand lines. This narrative

with supernatural elements204

comprises three main parts which are divided by the interludes

called „Beryl-songs‟205

. I think it is useful to give an outline of what the story is about before

looking in more detail at the flower imagery used in this poem.

In the first part of the poem we find Rose Mary‟s mother calling her daughter. She

wants the young woman to look into the „Beryl-stone‟, a magic crystal, which has visionary

qualities. Rose Mary has done this for her mother before, but this time, she has to look into it

for her own sake:

202

See Chapter 1. 203


Mégroz notes that the theme of the supernatural in the poem connects with the interest Rossetti developed for

spiritualism and „the dark unknown‟ in the 1860s. See R.L. Mégroz, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 265. 205

As Rossetti‟s brother William Michael noted, most readers of the poem thought that the interludes had better

not been added: „The “Beryl-songs” are a later addition, say 1879. The general opinion has been that they were

better away; I cannot but agree with it, and indeed the author did so eventually. I have heard my brother say that

he wrote them to show he was not incapable of the daring rhyming and rhythmical exploits of some other poets.

As to this point readers must judge. It is at any rate true that in making the word “Beryl” the pivot of his

experiment, a word to which are the fewest possible rhymes, my brother weighed himself heavily.‟ See William

Michael Rossetti, ed., The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 660, quoted in Jan Marsh, ed., Collected Writings

of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 507.

66

In hours whose need was not your own,

While you were a young maid yet ungrown,

You've read the stars in the Beryl-stone.

'Daughter, once more I bid you read;

But now let it be for your own need:

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 8-12)

The mother explains why she wants her daughter to have a look into the crystal. We learn that

Rose Mary is betrothed to a knight, Sir James of Heronhaye, who will ride out tomorrow to go

to confession before the wedding takes place:

[…] to-morrow, at break of day,

To Holy Cross he rides on his way,

Your knight Sir James of Heronhaye.

'Ere he wed you, […]

For a heavy shrift he seeks the shrine.

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 13-17)

The mother has heard rumours that „On his road […] / An ambush waits to take his life‟ (ll.

21-22). Since „in this glass [=the Beryl-stone] all things are shown‟ (l. 25), she wants Rose

Mary to find out where the danger lies. She repeats to Rose Mary that her father brought the

crystal from Palestine (l. 55). Because of the Muslim‟s „heathen worship‟ (l. 58), evil spirits

occupied it, but the „Blessed Rood‟ (l. 56) chased them away. They will only return „by a

Christian‟s sin‟ (l. 60). The mother has prayed all night and „the spell lacks nothing but [Rose

Mary‟s] eyes‟ (l. 65). Rose Mary seems to doubt that she will be able to see as in the past: „O

mother mine, if I should not see!‟ (l. 67). This is a first indication that she might not be as

pure as her mother thinks her to be. Her mother, however, reassures her that she will „see now

as heretofore‟ (l. 70). Reluctantly, Rose Mary gives in and look into the crystal. Her mother

urges her to tell her what she sees. A description of the scenery Rose Mary catches sight of, is

described in the following stanzas. (ll. 86-225). The mother concludes that now „all is learnt

that we need to know‟ (l. 230). Rose Mary has seen that there is indeed an ambush waiting for

her knight. However, another road, although Rose Mary‟s view of it was somewhat hindered

67

because of a cloud, seemed to be free from any danger, so her mother will urge the knight to

take that road:

'Ah! and yet I must leave you, dear,

For what you have seen your knight must hear.

Within four days, by the help of God

He comes back safe to his heart's abode:

Be sure he shall shun the valley-road.'

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 251-255)

All seems to be well at this point. However, the mention of the inscription on the crystal,

„‘None sees here but the pure alone’‟ (l. 277), foreshadows the complication that will arise in

part two of the poem. The complication is also signalled in the „Beryl-song‟ following the last

stanza of part one. In the song, the spirits within the stone like a chorus comment upon the

situation. They confirm the suspicion that Rose Mary is no longer the innocent girl her mother

takes her for. The spirits are evil ones that could get into the Beryl-stone because of a

„Christian‟s sin‟: „For stole not We in / Through a love-linked sin [?]‟ (ll. 308-309).

In part two of „Rose Mary‟, we find mother and daughter having a discussion. The

mother has by then found out that Rose Mary has sinned by having sexual relations with her

lover before their marriage. Rose Mary admits this but defends herself and her lover

exclaiming that „thy [=the knight‟s] sin and mine was for love alone‟ (l. 345). She does not

yet seem to be aware of the consequences of her past actions. Then she wonders how her

mother has found out „her shame‟ (l. 384). Her mother answers:

'Daughter, daughter, remember you

That cloud in the hills by Holycleugh?

'Twas a Hell-screen, hiding truth away:

There, not i' the vale, the ambush lay,

And thence was the dead borne home to-day.'

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 418-422)

68

Since the Beryl-stone only shows the truth to the pure, Rose Mary did not get to see it:

O girl, they can seal the sinful eyes,

Or show the truth by contraries!

(„Rose Mary, ll. 406-407)

The cloud that had prevented Rose Mary from having a clear view of the road, hid the fact

that the actual ambush was on that alternative road. As a result, Rose Mary‟s lover is now

dead and her mother knows that Rose Mary is no longer a virgin. Upon hearing this news,

Rose Mary‟s heart breaks (l. 427), she gives „one shriek‟ (l. 432) and she sinks (l. 432). The

mother decides to go for the priest for help:

What help can I seek, such grief to guide?

Ah! one alone might avail,' she cried. -

'The priest who prays at the dead man's side.'

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 455-457)

She urges the priest to „seek her, father, ere yet she wake‟ (l. 495) and stays with the dead

knight herself. The mother blames the knight for bringing shame upon herself and her

daughter but she can summon up the courage to forgive him because he loved her daughter

and was going to be honourable by marrying her:

'By thy death have I learnt to-day

Thy deed, O James of Heronhaye!

Great wrong thou hast done to me and mine;

And haply God hath wrought for a sign

By our blind deed this doom of thine.

'Thy shrift, alas! thou wast not to win;

But may death shrive thy soul herein!

Full well do I know thy love should be

Even yet - had life but stayed with thee –

Our honour's strong security.'

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 518-527)

69

At that point, however, another complication occurs. The mother notices „a packet close to the

dead man‟s breast‟ (l. 532). It appears to be „a folded paper […], / And round it, twined with

tenderest care, / A long bright tress of golden hair‟ (ll. 550-552). She reads the note and learns

the knight was to marry another woman. The mother is enraged and exclaims: „O thou dead

body and damnèd soul!‟ (l. 592). Just then the priest returns with the news that Rose Mary is

nowhere to be found:

'I sought your child where you bade me go,

And in rooms around and rooms below;

But where, alas! may the maiden be?

Fear nought, - we shall find her speedily, -

But come, come hither, and seek with me.'

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 598-602)

Another „Beryl-song‟ follows in which the spirits are lamenting the „desolate daughter‟ (l.

613) and are preparing the reader for what is yet to come: „Thou sleep‟st? Awake‟ (l. 628) and

„rather die‟ (l. 633), they say.

In part three of the narrative, we find out what happened to Rose Mary after her mother

had left her to go for the priest. She woke up and did not seem to remember what happened:

She knew she had waded bosom-deep

Along death's bank in the sedge of sleep:

All else was lost to her clouded mind;

Nor, looking back, could she see defin'd

O'er the dim dumb waste what lay behind.

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 677-681)

Thereupon, she „[raises] from the floor / And [drags] her steps to an open door‟ (ll. 697-698)

which leads her to „the altar-cell‟ (l. 716), where her mother has been hiding the Beryl-stone.

Upon seeing the crystal, the past is „brought back‟ (l. 761) until „all [is] known again‟ (l. 771),

and she looks at the Beryl-stone full of hate (l. 786). In the name of Love and God (l. 838),

she takes her father‟s sword and „[cleaves] the heart of the Beryl-stone‟ (l. 841). The next

moment, the magic glass lies broken on the ground, the house is ruined and all is still:

70

When all was still on the air again

The Beryl-stone lay cleft in twain;

The veil was rent from the riven dome;

And every wind that's winged to roam

Might have the ruined place for home.

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 862-866)

We find Rose Mary lying on the ground, dead:

And lo! on the ground Rose Mary lay,

With a cold brow like the snows ere May,

With a cold breast like the earth till Spring,

With such a smile as the June days bring

When the year grows warm for harvesting.

The death she had won might leave no trace

On the soft sweet form and gentle face:

In a gracious sleep she seemed to lie;

And over her head her hand on high

Held fast the sword she triumphed by.

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 872-881)

At that moment „ a clear voice [says] in the room‟ (l. 882):

'Behold the end of the heavy doom.

O come, - for thy bitter love's sake blest;

By a sweet path now thou journeyest,

And I will lead thee to thy rest.

(„Rose Mary‟, ll. 883-886)

The voice appears to belong to the spirit that was chased away from the crystal by Rose

Mary‟s sin (ll. 887-888). Because she has „cast forth [the spirit‟s] foes‟ (l. 891), Rose Mary

will be redeemed. While by her corpse people will mourn, her soul will go to the „Heaven of

Love‟ (l. 896) and will forget about the man she died for, who will be in the „Hell of Treason‟

(l. 896). The poem is brought to a close with the third „Beryl-song‟, in which the evil spirits,

71

„cast forth from the Beryl‟ (l. 907), complain that they have no shelter left and that their

scheme to „dissever [Rose Mary‟s] soul from its joy for ever‟ (l. 933) has fallen through.

In view of the events in the story, I would now like to look more closely at the flower

imagery Rossetti uses in the representation of the figure of Rose Mary and at how it is

modified in the course of the poem.

She is presented to us for the first time by her mother as „Mary mine that art Mary‟s

Rose‟ (l. 1). By playing with her name, Rose Mary is described as a rose, and, more

specifically, with (the Virgin) Mary‟s rose. In the Middle Ages (very likely the time in which

the story is set, judging from references to such things as knights, castles, pilgrimages,

tourney-games, a war with the Muslims), as mentioned above, Mary was often symbolized by

a (white) rose. By calling his character „Mary‟s Rose‟, Rossetti projects the virtues associated

with the Virgin onto the former. Rose Mary is on several occasions described as being „pale‟

(ll. 25, 71, 313). This, indeed, makes of her the white rose so often associated with the Virgin

Mary. Thus, at the beginning of the story, Rose Mary is presented as a virtuous, innocent,

pure young woman. Because Rose Mary is so pure and without sin, her mother believes that

her daughter is the perfect person to look into the magic glass: „what rose may be / In Mary‟s

bower more pure to see / Than my own sweet maiden Rose Mary?‟ (ll. 278-280).

At the beginning of the second part of the poem, Rose Mary‟s mother has already

discovered that her daughter is no longer a „pure maiden‟. At that point, she describes Rose

Mary as „a rose that Mary weeps upon‟ (l. 314). She imagines the Virgin Mary is crying

because one of her white roses, an innocent young girl, has sinned. When she asks her

daughter what should be done with such a rose, the young woman acknowledges that it would

be best to „let it fall from the tree‟ (l. 315). Rose Mary is now called „a cankered flower

beneath the sun‟ (l. 319). Now that she has admitted that she no longer belongs among the

white roses, she is no longer described as pale either. She stood „tall […] with a cheek flushed

high‟ (l. 358). That would make of her a red rose, associated with love and passion.

In the third part of the poem, however, Rose Mary is once more described as being

white („with a […] visage pale‟ (l. 740), „the face was white in the dark hair‟s flow‟ (l. 785),

„the fair white hands‟ (l. 839)) which might be a signal of the recovery that will follow as a

result of her faithfulness in love. However, Rose Mary is not to be a rose in „Mary‟s rose-

bower‟ (l. 898) again. Her body will stay behind on earth, while her „true soul‟ (l. 897) will go

to a „place afar / with guerdon-fires of the sweet Love-star / Where hearts of steadfast lovers

72

are‟ (ll. 899-901). Since she is a spirit now, she cannot be compared to a flower anymore. Her

body is the part of her left with the „rose-flower and rosemary‟ (l. 906).

Roper Howard reads the use of rose imagery in this poem in a somewhat different way.

The meaning she chooses to assign to the rose in the poem is the one of secrecy.206

Indeed, as

mentioned above, the rose occasionally is used as a symbol of secrecy. In „Rose Mary‟, this

interpretation of the rose is a suitable one, given the sin Rose Mary sought to hide from her

mother.

Furthermore, both Roper Howard and Hyder point out the significance of the reference

to rosemary in the last line, but they attribute different meanings to the plant. Hyder claims

that „rosemary‟ in this case, next to being a pun on Rose Mary, stands for „remembrance‟.207

I

think this interpretation seems sensible. In the first place, rosemary is typically used as a sign

that the dead will be remembered, and in the poem, it is laid with the corpse. However, I think

the herb, when attributed to remembrance, might also imply that Rose Mary‟s memories are

left behind together with her body, while her soul no longer cares about what happened.

Indeed, as the spirit says: „Already thy heart remembereth / No more his name thou sought‟st

in death‟ (ll. 892-893). In Roper Howard‟s opinion, the reference to rosemary (which she

interprets as „an emblem of fidelity or constancy‟208

) is even more important in the context of

the poem than that to the rose. She writes that it is symbolic of „the trueness of [Rose Mary‟s]

love‟209

that „saves [her]‟.210

Indeed, Rose Mary will go to heaven whereas her knight will be

sent to hell for his betrayal. The interpretations of rosemary as a symbol of remembrance or as

one of fidelity both seem to fit into the context of the poem.

Although in „Rose Mary‟, the flower images can be interpreted in various ways, their

possible significances all seem to be sensible when one keeps in mind the themes of the poem.

The use of the comparison of Rose Mary with a rose in particular seems to be carefully

206


See Clyde K. Hyder, “Rossetti‟s Rose Mary: A study in the Occult”, Victorian Poetry 1 (1963): pp. 197-207,

quoted in Ronnalie Roper Howard, The Dark Glass, p. 153.

Hyder for this meaning of the flowering herb relies on the reference made to it in Shakespeare‟s Hamlet.

According to Ophelia „rosemary [is] for remembrance‟ (Hamlet, IV.5. l. 174). Indeed, the herb was commonly

believed to strengthen the memory. Rosemary is in addition associated with death. In past centuries in Europe, it

has often been used at funerals and on graves for three reasons. It was used as a sign that the deceased would be

remembered, it was believed to hold off evil spirits, and because it remains green throughout the year, it

symbolizes immortality. Next to these meanings, rosemary can carry yet another one. It was also worn at

weddings as a symbol of fertility and of fidelity between lovers. I rely on: Marcel De Cleene and Marie Claire

Lejeune, Compendium van rituele planten in Europa, pp. 950-960; Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers, pp.

179-181, p. 284, p. 291; Claire Powell, The Meaning of Flowers, p. 121. 208



See Ronnalie Roper Howard, The Dark Glass, pp. 153-154.

73

chosen and it is modified as our knowledge about the figure of Rose Mary changes in the

course of the poem.

4.4. ‘I am the poet of the body, And I am the poet of the soul’211

4.4.1. The rose and the poppy212

The various shades of meaning that the rose refers to have already been discussed

above. However, the meanings traditionally attributed to the poppy, the second sort of flower

used in the poems I am about to discuss, are still to be introduced below.

In antiquity, the Greeks soon discovered the narcotic qualities of the poppy. They made

it the flower of their gods Hypnos and Morpheus, which were the gods of sleep and dreams.

Subsequently, in Europe the poppy was associated with sleep, peace and quiet throughout the

following centuries. Images of poppies were often used to decorate graves, with death being

interpreted as an eternal sleep. A well-known example of the application of the poppy as a

symbol of death and peace is the poem „In Flanders Fields‟, written by the Canadian medical

doctor John McCrae during the first world war. In his poem the flowers symbolize the peace

that will come as a result of those who have died fighting for it.

As expected, the poppy, too, can be the symbol of numerous other concepts besides the

most common ones of peace, sleep and death. In antiquity it was also considered to be a

symbol of fertility because of the myriad seeds it contained. In addition, considering the blood

red colour of the petals, which make the flower stand out among others, it could represent

pride as well. Its red colour together with the meaning of death caused the Christians to refer

to the poppy as a symbol for the suffering of Christ. In other cases, poppies are said to be

flowers that can offer consolation or that can predict the future in matters of love.

211

Walt Whitman, „Song of Myself‟ (ll. 422-423) in Leaves of Grass, 1855. Full text in William E. Cain,

American Literature, pp. 1225-1278. 212

For information on the poppy, I rely on : Marcel De Cleene and Marie Claire Lejeune, Compendium van

rituele planten in Europa, pp. 862-877; Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers, p. 298; Claire Powell, The

Meaning of Flowers, p. 152.

74

4.4.2. ‘Body’s Beauty’

Rossetti wrote the sonnet „Body‟s Beauty‟ in 1867.213

However, at that time and when it

was published in the 1870 Poems volume, the title of the sonnet was „Lilith‟. This poem, just

like „Mary‟s Girlhood‟ and „The Blessed Damozel‟, is an example of the many „double works

of art‟ Rossetti made during his artistic career. It was written to accompany the painting

entitled Lady Lilith, which Rossetti completed in 1868.214

By the time the sonnet was re-

published in The House of Life sonnet sequence, which was included in the 1881 volume

Ballads and Sonnets, Rossetti had renamed the sonnet „Body‟s Beauty‟.

The painting Lady Lilith portrays a young woman, combing her long hair while she is

looking into a mirror. She is sitting in a room, surrounded by several types of flowers.

According to art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn, the subject and meaning of this painting

probably came about in several phases.215

Her guess is that Rossetti initially intended to paint

a randomly chosen woman, making her toilet and it was only later on that the artist decided to

associate it with Lady Lilith in particular.

Now, who is Lady Lilith? In the Talmudic tradition216

, she was the first wife of Adam

before Eve was created.217

There are only a few literary references to her, one of which is to

be found in Goethe‟s Faust (1808). In the German author‟s story, the main character, Faust, is

warned against Lilith by the devil Mephistopheles. In a few verses Goethe writes about

Lilith‟s hair and how mesmerizing it is:

“Beware of her hair, for she excels

All women in the magic of her locks

And when she twines them round a young man‟s neck

She will not ever set him free again.”218

213


See Appendix, p. 129. (fig. 4) 215


The Talmud is a collection of ancient writings on Jewish law and traditions. See Sally Wehmeier (ed.),

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 1328. 217

Lilith, according to the Hebrew legend, was created from the dust (and not, like Eve, from Adam‟s rib).

Therefore, she considered herself to be Adam‟s equal and she did not want to submit to him. She had her

revenge on God and Adam by hurting babies, mainly male babies, who in the legend are said to have been more

vulnerable to her assaults. See Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, p. 35. 218

This is the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley‟s translation of Goethe‟s lines, quoted in Virginia M. Allen, “„One

Strangling Golden Hair‟: Dante Gabriel Rossetti‟s Lady Lilith.”, p. 290.

75

As we will see below, Rossetti incorporated the same idea in his poem „Body‟s Beauty‟.

Another reference to the legend of Lilith was put in writing by Gabriel Rossetti himself,

namely in the poem entitled „Eden Bower‟.219

„Eden Bower‟ was written in 1869, so after

bringing up the figure of Lilith in Lady Lilith and in „Body‟s Beauty‟, Rossetti returned to the

legendary character once more a few years later.

In „Eden Bower‟ Rossetti combines the Talmudic legend, in which the figure of Lilith

has its roots, with the Biblical legend of Adam and Eve into a story about Lilith‟s plan for

passionate revenge on God, Adam and Eve. At the beginning of her long monologue, Lilith

complains to the snake, who was her lover at the time Lilith was still a snake herself, about

what happened. Lilith and Adam were having „great joys‟ (l. 29), until God „of Adam‟s flesh

[…] [made] him a woman‟ (l. 40). She explains to the snake that now she wants to take

revenge on her rivals in Eden. Because she needs his help, she tries to convince him to assist

her by promising she will be his lover as before:

„Help me once against Eve and Adam!

[…]

Help me once for this one endeavour,

And then my love shall be thine for ever!

„Strong is God, the fell foe of Lilith:

[…]

Nought in heaven or earth may affright him;

But join with me and we will smite him.

(„Eden Bower‟, ll. 49-56)

The snake hears about what Lilith hopes to bring about in the near future. Her plan is to

borrow the serpent‟s shape…

„In thy shape I‟ll go back to Eden

(„Eden Bower‟, l. 93)

219

See Appendix, p. 120.

76

… and to convince Eve to eat the infamous apple:

„Then Eve shall eat and give unto Adam

(„Eden Bower‟, l. 109)

This is where the Talmudic and the Biblical legends come together. In Rossetti‟s version of

the stories, Adam and Eve‟s expulsion and downfall is caused by Lilith.

The characteristics Rossetti ascribes to his female protagonist in „Eden Bower‟ remind

one of the way he presented her in his earlier poem „Body‟s Beauty‟. As we will see below in

the discussion of „Body‟s Beauty‟, the poet states in that sonnet that Lilith is a witch.

Similarly, in „Eden Bower‟, she is said to look like „a soft sweet woman‟ (l. 4) while in fact

„not a drop of her blood was human‟ (l. 3). In both poems, Lilith is presented as a figure

having supernatural qualities. However, in „Body‟s Beauty‟, although she leads men to death,

she does not seem to intend to do so. In „Eden Bower‟, on the contrary, she appears to be evil

to the core: „With her was hell and with Eve was heaven‟ (l. 8). Another similarity between

this poem and the sonnet is the importance attributed to Lilith‟s hair with regard to the power

she has over men. In her monologue she mentions that Adam‟s heart was caught in the net

which was formed by the threads of her hair and that the selfsame trickery made her his queen

(before Eve was created):

All the threads of my hair are golden,

And there in a net his heart was holden.

„O and Lilith was queen of Adam!

(„Eden Bower‟, ll. 23-25)

As mentioned above, the same woman is at the centre of the sonnet „Body‟s Beauty‟. In

this poem, Rossetti clarifies exactly who this Lady Lilith is who is portrayed on the painting

with which the poem is matched. As we already know, Lilith was „Adam‟s first wife‟ (l. 1).

Seemingly innocent in the painting, Lilith is in fact, according to the narrator of the sonnet, a

„witch‟ (l. 2). In stories passed on about her, we read that she could deceive people with her

words even before the snake in the Garden of Eden: „[I]t is told / […] / That, ere the snake's,

her sweet tongue could deceive‟ (ll. 1-3). Her hair is also commonly mentioned in the

77

legends, and people assume that it looked as if it was made of the first gold. The word

„enchanted‟ (l. 4) that accompanies „hair‟ (l. 4), serves as an affirmation of Lilith‟s witch-like

qualities. In the next few lines of the octave Lilith is compared to a spider that casually looks

on, as flies are caught in its web. Here, however, the victims are men. They are drawn to

Lilith and then caught in the „bright web‟ (l. 7) of her hair, just like Adam in „Eden Bower‟.

Once those men are trapped, Lilith is in control of their hearts, bodies and lives (l. 8).

In lines five to eight, the tense of the verbs is the present tense, because, as we are told

in line five, Lilith still lives on: „And still she sits, young while the earth is old‟ (l. 5). This

should be seen in the light of a comment on the painting Lady Lilith in one of Rossetti‟s

letters. As we have seen, Rossetti‟s original idea was to paint a contemporary woman. Later

on, he decided to name the figure Lady Lilith. However, in this letter, he claimed that the

painting, even after he had given it its present title Lady Lilith, represented a modern woman

making her toilet.220

This seems to suggest that the figure depicted in the painting and

described in the sonnet represents the „femme fatale‟ in general rather than one particular

woman. Rossetti seems to imply that women with characteristics like Lady Lilith‟s can be

found in all ages. The poet‟s choice to change the poem‟s title from the specific „Lilith‟ to the

more general „Body‟s Beauty‟ supports this interpretation. It allows the reader to extrapolate

characteristics attributed to Lilith and apply them to other women.

In the sestet of the sonnet the narrator addresses Lilith. Again, given that he can talk to

her in the present, she might as well be a contemporary woman. In line nine of the poem two

sorts of flowers that are also depicted in the painting are mentioned, namely the rose and the

poppy. They seem to be an indissoluble part of Lilith because the poet calls them „her

flowers‟ (l. 9). Indeed, they appear to play an important role in Lilith‟s ability to wield power

over men. „For‟, as the speaker rhetorically asks Lilith, „where / Is he not found, […], whom

shed scent / And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?‟ (ll. 9-11). No man has ever been

able to resist either the perfume of the roses or the sleep-inducing effect of the poppies and

when combined with Lilith‟s kisses, men tend to become defenceless. It seems that, at the

very time the narrator is speaking, Lilith is capturing another man. A young man has just

looked into her eyes and she bewitched him by looking back: „Lo! as that youth‟s eyes burned

at thine, so went / Thy spell through him‟ (ll. 12-13). This „left his straight neck bent‟ (l. 13),

which can mean that she either makes him submissive or that she kills him. Moreover, by

means of her hair, she strangles his heart. I think this might imply that either she is then the

220

See The Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ed. Oswald Doughty and John Robert Wahl, part II, p. 850, quoted

in Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 66.

78

only one on his mind by taking total possession of his heart, meaning his feelings, or again

that she physically kills him.

The rose and the poppy in this sonnet serve multiple functions. Literally, they assist

Lilith in her schemes to attract and bewilder men, the rose because of its sweet scent and the

poppy because of its promise of a soft sleep. However, they also have their symbolic meaning

in the poem. They seem to go along with Lilith‟s qualities and actions. The rose, I think,

stands for the beauty Lilith possesses with which she draws men to her, and also for the love

(the kisses) she promises them. In this poem I would interpret the poppy in its meaning of

death. Lilith seems to offer men a soft sleep but in fact, as the last lines suggest, she takes

their life, offering them „the eternal sleep‟.

4.4.3. ‘Soul’s Beauty’

The sonnet „Soul‟s Beauty‟ was written by Rossetti in 1867.221

It acquired its present

title as late as 1881 when it was re-published in The House of Life sonnet sequence, which

was included in Rossetti‟s Ballads and Sonnets. Before that date, the poem was entitled

„Sibylla Palmifera‟, given that it was meant to accompany a painting with the same title.222

Moreover, „Soul‟s Beauty‟ and Sibylla Palmifera were meant to be contrasted with „Body‟s

Beauty‟ and Lady Lilith.

The painting Sibylla Palmifera portrays a young dark-haired woman holding a palm in a

room filled with flowers, fire, incense and figurines. Prettejohn explains that Rossetti

modified the title of this painting a few times in the course of years.223

When he started to

paint the composition in 1865, it was called Palmifera, referring to the palm in the woman‟s

hand.224

In one of his letters Rossetti declared that the palm indicated that he wanted this

figure to have a leading position among the other women he had painted.225

By 1867 the term

221


See Appendix, p. 129. (fig. 5) 223

See Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 192-193. 224

The palm has since time immemorial been associated with heroes because it was meant to be a sign of

victory. Next to that, it is a symbol of eternal life and steadfastness because of its evergreen leaves and because it

looks the same throughout the year. In some European countries, yet another quality was attributed to the palm.

It was believed to hold powers relating to prediction. I rely on: Marcel De Cleene and Marie Claire Lejeune,

Compendium van rituele planten in Europa, pp. 843-861; Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers, p. 154; Claire

Powell, The Meaning of Flowers, p. 150. 225

See William Michael Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer. (London: Cassell, 1889),

quoted in Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 192.

79

„Sibylla‟ was added to the title. It is derived from the concept of the „sibyl‟, in classic

mythology the name for a woman who can see the future.226

In the first part of the accompanying sonnet, the speaker tells us how he has seen

„Beauty‟ personified (l. 3), more specifically, as the title suggests, spiritual beauty. She was

sitting on her throne „Under the arch of Life‟ (l. 1) and she was surrounded by „love and

death‟ (l. 1) and „terror and mystery‟227

(l. 2). We are told that her eyes drew the speaker to

her and that he looked at her admiringly. In the second part of the poem, the painting which it

was meant to accompany is referred to when the speaker says: „This is that Lady Beauty‟ (l.

9). We learn that the woman portrayed in the painting is the woman the speaker has seen. The

speaker‟s „voice and hand shake still‟ (l. 10) while he is talking about her and both his „heart

and feet‟ are „following her daily‟ (l. 12). The speaker of the poem is in constant pursuit of

spiritual beauty. Rossetti told his brother that in this sonnet and the accompanying painting he

presented intellectual beauty, which „draws all high-toned men to itself, whether with the aim

of embodying it in art or only of attaining its enjoyment in life‟.228

No flowers are mentioned in „Soul‟s Beauty‟, at least not literally. On the

accompanying painting, however, Sibylla Palmifera, like Lady Lilith, is surrounded by roses

and poppies. What is mentioned in the sonnet is what these are meant to symbolize, namely

the concepts of love and death referred to in the first line. The attributes depicted on the left-

hand side in the background of the painting, the roses, the cupid sculpture and the flame, are

all three symbols of love.229

On the right-hand side, the poppies are a symbol of death,

together with the skull and the censer.230

The butterflies are also associated with death:

traditionally they symbolize the liberated human soul.231

I should like to elaborate on the sonnets „Body‟s Beauty‟ and „Soul‟s Beauty‟ and their

flower symbolism when confronting them in the following section of the chapter.

226


Prettejohn suspects that the „terror‟ and „mystery‟ in the sonnet are represented in the painting on the alcove

in the background. On the left of that alcove there is a sculptured creature, possibly a snake, and on the right

there is a sphinx. These figures would then symbolize respectively „terror‟ and „mystery‟. See Julian Treuherz,

Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 193. 228

See William Michael Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti as Designer and Writer, p. 56, quoted in Jerome

McGann, “Soul‟s Beauty”. The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia

Research Archive. Ed. Jerome McGann. (Charlottesville: Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities,

2000-2007). 06 April 2007. (http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/1-1867.s193.raw.html); Elizabeth Prettejohn,

Rossetti and his Circle, p. 10. 229




80

4.4.4. ‘Body’s Beauty’ and ‘Soul’s Beauty’: each other’s opposites?

The paintings Lady Lilith and Sibylla Palmifera were, according to Elizabeth Prettejohn,

linked up round about 1867, when they were both as good as completed and their

accompanying sonnets were written.232

In 1868, Rossetti‟s author-friend Swinburne wrote an article in which he published the

sonnets and discussed the paintings they were matched with at length.233

At that time, the

titles of the sonnets had not yet been changed from „Lady Lilith‟ and „Sibylla Palmifera‟ into

„Body‟s Beauty‟ and „Soul‟s Beauty‟ by their writer. Even so, Swinburne already then

conceived of the double works of art as being each other‟s opposites. He argued that while

Lilith is a siren possessing physical beauty, Sibylla is the sibyl holding spiritual beauty.

Elizabeth Prettejohn agrees with the interpretation of these female figures as the

embodiment of the beauty of the body and the beauty of the soul respectively. According to

Prettejohn, they represent opposite aspects of beauty which can be applied to women as well

as to art:

The two pairs of sonnets and pictures can easily be interpreted as symbolising the conventional

Victorian dichotomy between Madonna and Magdalen, wife and whore. They can also be read as

symbolising the dichotomy between the spiritual and physical in art. 234

Thus, at first glance, the „bad woman‟ Lady Lilith with her physical beauty is opposed

to the „good woman‟ Sibylla Palmifera with her intellectual beauty. However, as Prettejohn

notes, the opposition between the two turns out not to be so straightforward. She draws

attention to the similarities Rossetti incorporated into the paintings and sonnets.

Both types of beauty are said to attract those who see them.235

Lady Lilith „snares‟ (l.

12) men by her physical beauty. Sibylla Palmifera‟s psychological beauty „can draw‟ (l. 6)

them to her as well. However, as Prettejohn notes, Rossetti does not represent spiritual beauty

232


See William Michael Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne, Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition,

1868 (London: John Camden Hotten, 1868), p. 46, quoted in Julian Treuherz, Elizabeth Prettejohn and Edwin

Becker, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 192. 234

See Elizabeth Prettejohn, Rossetti and his Circle, pp. 30-31. 235


81

as free from human passion.236

Sibylla‟s outward appearances, her eyes (l. 5), her „flying hair‟

(l. 11) and „fluttering hem‟ (l. 11), seem to have an appealing effect on men as well. Also,

both women have supernatural qualities. Whereas Lilith is said to be a witch, Sibylla, as her

name suggests, can see into the future.

Even more striking, however, is the fact that Rossetti associates the two personifications

of beauty with the same flowers: the roses and poppies in the painting and the sonnet with

Lilith at the centre are also depicted in Sibylla‟s painting.237

Both women are associated with

love and death. This might suggest that they are more alike than they seem at first glance. In

fact, one woman modelled for both paintings. Rossetti decided to replace the features of

Fanny Cornforth,238

the first model for Lady Lilith, by those of Alexa Wilding,239

who had

already modelled for Sibylla Palmifera. As a result, the paintings now portray the same

woman.

To complicate matters even more, the roses in the background of the painting of Lady

Lilith are coloured white (just like her dress) whereas the roses behind Sibylla Palmifera (and

her dress) are red.240

As we have seen above, white roses are associated with innocence and

purity. Here, however, Rossetti makes them the attributes of the ill-natured temptress Lilith.

Red roses, on the other hand, are traditionally a sign of passionate love. Here, however,

Rossetti has chosen to associate them with Sibylla Palmifera, the woman embodying spiritual

beauty. Prettejohn concludes from this that the women are „at least as similar as they are

dichotomous‟.241

Considering this information, Elizabeth Prettejohn believes that Rossetti wanted to

undermine the Victorian tradition of representing the virtuous, intellectual woman and the

evil, seductive one as two absolute opposites. 242

At first glance it looks as if he makes use of

the opposition himself. However, by providing the conventional flower symbolism with an

intentional twist, we are left wondering „which is the saint, which is the witch? And which

should we prefer?‟243

Rossetti seems to suggest that the distinction between the principles of

good and bad is not easily made.

236



Fanny Cornforth may have been Rossetti‟s mistress and was one of his regular models. See Chapter 1. 239

Alexa Wilding modelled for several of Rossetti‟s paintings. See Chapter 1. 240




See Elizabeth Prettejohn, Rossetti and his Circle, p. 31.

82

4.5. Conclusion

In this chapter, we have seen that Rossetti, in keeping with Victorian tradition, matches

the women at the centre of the poems I have selected, with particular flower images. As we

have seen, he did this for a purpose. As the flowers symbolize specific qualities, they can

influence our interpretation of the female figure they are linked with.

The flowers are meant to symbolize specific concepts or qualities. In this way, when

linked with the female figure in a particular poem, they provide information about the

character‟s personality.

Rossetti interpreted the lily, in accordance with tradition, as a sign of innocence and

purity. By making it the attribute of Mary and the blessed Damozel, he underscored the

virtuous nature of the good ladies in his early poems. Rossetti‟s „fallen woman‟ Jenny lost her

link with the lily. Her symbol was the red rose because her main quality was her beauty. In

„Rose Mary‟, one of Rossetti‟s later poems, the poet still made use of flower images to have

the reader associate the female figure with certain characteristics. However, in this poem,

Rossetti used the flower imagery in an ironic way. Rose Mary was equalled to a white rose,

the sign of purity, although she was no longer innocent. That Rossetti‟s symbolism in later

years would become more ambiguous, was already foreshadowed in the pair of sonnets

„Body‟s Beauty‟ and „Soul‟s Beauty‟. It is exactly the use of flower imagery in those poems

(and their paintings) that prevented the reader from drawing a distinction between the good

and the bad woman. Rossetti seemed to simultaneously challenge the Victorian traditional

opposition between the virtuous and the evil woman and to suggest that a flower image alone

is not enough to represent the whole character of a person.

83

Conclusion

My intention with this dissertation was to determine to what end Dante Gabriel Rossetti,

in accordance with Victorian tradition, made use of flower images when writing about a

female figure. The flower images in the poems I selected were vehicles of symbolic meaning.

I concluded that, by using floral symbolism in the presentation of a female character, Rossetti

affected the reader‟s impression of this central figure. By approaching the flower imagery as a

rich and inventive symbolic poetic means, the reader can attribute certain qualities to the

woman described in the poem. In this way, we can make a rough distinction between

Rossetti‟s „good‟ and „bad‟ female characters.

In Sharp‟s opinion, „decoding‟ a symbol in a painting is a „pleasanter method of

discovery than having to look […] to the explanation of a printed catalogue.‟244

In his poetry

too, Rossetti used flower images to inform the reader about the woman he was describing in a

non-prosaic way. This was certainly the case in the earlier poems I have been discussing. In

later works, Rossetti still gave the floral images he used common symbolic meanings.

However, in those later poems, he seemed to „play‟ and experiment with his own method of

representing and delineating the personality of his female figure by means of a symbol. In

later poems, he used flower imagery in an ironical way, or at least he made the imagery

ambiguous.

The riches and versatility to be found in Dante Gabriel Rossetti‟s poetry, I strongly

believe, cannot be conjectured and rendered in one formula or magic phrase. I think that the

habit of studying his literary work from a biographical point of view only, does not do enough

honour to its ingenuity.

244

See William Sharp, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, p. 117.

84

Appendix

Poems

Mary's Girlhood

(FOR A PICTURE)

I

This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect

God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she

Was young in Nazareth of Galilee.

Her kin she cherished with devout respect:

her gifts were simpleness of intellect, 5

And supreme patience. From her mother's knee

Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;

Strong in grave peace; in duty circumspect.

So held she through her girlhood; as it were

An angel-watered lily, that near God 10

Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home

She woke in her white bed, and had no fear

At all, - yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed:

Because the fulness of the time was come.

II

These are the symbols. On that cloth of red 15

I' the centre is the Tripoint: perfect each,

Except the second of its points, to teach

That Christ is not yet born. The books - whose head

Is golden Charity, as Paul hath said -

Those virtues are wherein the soul is rich: 20

Therefore on them the lily standeth, which

Is Innocence bring interpreted.

The seven-thorn'd briar and the palm seven-leaved

Are her great sorrow and her great reward.

Until the end be full, the - Holy One 25

Abides without. She soon shall have achieved

Her perfect purity: yea, God the Lord

Shall soon vouchsafe His Son to be her Son.

85

The Blessed Damozel

The blessed Damozel leaned out

From the gold bar of Heaven:

Her blue grave eyes were deeper much

Than a deep water, even.

She had three lilies in her hand, 5

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

On the neck meetly worn; 10

And her hair, lying down her back,

Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseemed she scarce had been a day

One of God's choristers;

The wonder was not yet quite gone 15

From that still look of hers;

Albeit to them she left, her day

Had counted as ten years.

(To one it is ten years of years:

..... Yet now, here in this place 20

Surely she leaned o'er me, - her hair

Fell all about my face......

Nothing: the Autumn-fall of leaves.

The whole year sets apace.)

It was the terrace of God's house 25

That she was standing on, -

By God built over the sheer depth

In which Space is begun;

So high, that looking downward thence,

She could scarce see the sun. 30

It lies from Heaven across the flood

Of ether, as a bridge.

Beneath, the tides of day and night

With flame and blackness ridge

The void, as low as where this earth 35

Spins like a fretful midge.

But in those tracts, with her, it was

The peace of utter light

And silence. For no breeze may stir

Along the steady flight 40

Of seraphim; no echo there,

86

Beyond all depth or height.

Heard hardly, some of her new friends

Playing at holy games

Spake, gentle-mouthed, among themselves, 45

Their virginal chaste names;

And the souls, mounting up to God

Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself, and stooped

Into the vast waste calm; 50

Till her bosom‟s pressure must have made

The bar she leaned on warm,

And the lilies lay as if asleep

Along her bended arm.

From the fixt lull of heaven she saw 55

Time like a pulse, shake fierce

Through all the worids. Her gaze still strove,

In that steep gulph, to pierce

The swarm: and then she spake as when

The stars sang in their spheres. 60

“I wish that he were come to me,

For he will come,” she said.

“Have I not prayed in solemn heaven?

On earth, has he not prayed?

Are not two prayers a perfect strength? 65

And shall I feel afraid?

“When round his head the aureole clings,

And he is clothed in white,

I'll take his hand, and go with him

To the deep wells of light, 70

And we will step down as to a stream

And bathe there in God's sight.

“We two will stand beside that shrine,

Occult, withheld, untrod,

Whose lamps stremble continually 75

With prayer sent up to God;

And where each need, revealed, expects

Its patient period.

“We two will lie - i' the shadow of

That living mystic tree 80

Within whose secret growth the Dove

Sometimes is felt to be,

While every leaf that His plumes touch

Saith His Name audibly.

87

“And I myself will teach to him - 85

I myself, lying so, -

The songs I sing here; which his mouth

Shall pause in, hushed and slow,

Finding some knowledge at each pause

And some new thing to know.” 90

(Alas! to her wise simple mind

These things were all but known

Before: they trembled on her sense, -

Her voice had caught their tone.

Alas for lonely Heaven! Alas 95

For life wrung out alone!

Alas, and though the end were reached?……

Was thy part understood

Or borne in trust? And for her sake

Shall this too be found good? – 100

May the close lips that knew not prayer

Praise ever, though they would?)

“We two,” she said, “will seek the groves

Where the lady Mary is,

With her five handmaidens, whose names 105

Are five sweet symphonies: –

Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,

Margaret and Rosalys.

“Circle-wise sit they, with bound locks

And bosoms covered; 110

Into the fine cloth, white like flame

Weaving the golden thread,

To fashion the birth-robes for them

Who are just born, being dead.

“He shall fear haply, and be dumb: 115

Then will I lay my cheek

To his, and tell about our love,

Not once abashed or weak:

And the dear Mother will approve

My pride, and let me speak. 120

“Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,

To Him round whom all souls

Kneel – the unnumber‟d solemn heads

Bowed with their aureoles:

And Angels meeting us, shall sing 125

To their citherns and citoles.

88

“There will I ask of Christ the Lord

Thus much for him and me: –

To have more blessing then on earth

In nowise; but to be 130

As then we were, – being as then

At peace. Yea, verily.

“Yea verily; when he is come

We will do thus and thus:

Till this my vigil seem quite strange 135

And almost fabulous;

We two will live at once, one life;

And peace shall be with us.”

She gazed and listened and then said,

Less sad of speech than mild: 140

“All this is when he comes.” She ceased;

The light thrilled past her, filled

With Angels, in strong level lapse.

Her eyes prayed, and she smiled.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their flight 145

Was vague „mid the poised spheres:

And then she cast her arms along

The golden barriers,

And laid her face between her hands,

And wept. (I heard her tears.) 150

Jenny

'Vengeance of Jenny's case! Fie on her! Never name her, child!'

(Mistress Quickly)

Lazy laughing languid Jenny,

Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,

Whose head upon my knee to-night

Rests for a while, as if grown light

With all our dances and the sound 5

To which the wild tunes spun you round:

Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen

Of kisses which the blush between

Could hardly make much daintier;

Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair 10

Is countless gold incomparable:

Flesh flower, scarce touched with signs that tell

Of Love's exuberant hotbed: – Nay,

Poor flower left torn since yesterday

89

Until tomorrow leave you bare; 15

Poor handful of bright spring-water

Flung in the whirlpool's shrieking face;

Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace

Thus with your head upon my knee; -

Whose person or whose purse may be 20

The lodestar of your reverie?

This room of yours, my Jenny, looks

A change from mine so full of books,

Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth,

So many captive hours of youth, - 25

The hours they thieve from day and night

To make one's cherished work come right,

And leave it wrong for all their theft,

Even as to-night my work was left:

Until I vowed that since my brain 30

And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,

My feet should have some dancing too: -

And thus it was I met with you.

Well, I suppose 'twas hard to part,

For here I am. And now, sweetheart, 35

You seem too tired to get to bed.

It was a careless life I led

When rooms like this were scarce so strange

Not long ago. What breeds the change, -

The many aims or the few years? 40

Because to-night it all appears

Something I do not know again.

The cloud's not danced out of my brain, -

The cloud that made it turn and swim

While hour by hour the books grew dim. 45

Why, Jenny, as I watch you there, -

For all your wealth of loosened hair,

Your silk ungirdled and unlac'd

And warm sweets open to the waist,

All golden in the lamplight's gleam, - 50

You know not what a book you seem,

Half-read by lightning in a dream!

How should you know, my Jenny? Nay,

And I should be ashamed to say: -

Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss! 55

But while my thought runs on like this

With wasteful whims more than enough,

I wonder what you're thinking of.

If of myself you think at all,

What is the thought? - conjectural 60

90

On sorry matters best unsolved? –

Or inly is each grace revolved

To fit me with a lure? - or (sad

To think!) perhaps you're merely glad

That I'm not drunk or ruffianly 65

And let you rest upon my knee.

For sometimes, were the truth confess'd,

You're thankful for a little rest, –

Glad from the crush to rest within,

From the heart-sickness and the din 70

Where envy's voice at virtue's pitch

Mocks you because your gown is rich;

And from the pale girl's dumb rebuke,

Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look

Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak 75

And other nights than yours bespeak;

And from the wise unchildish elf

To schoolmate lesser than himself

Pointing you out, what thing you are: –

Yes, from the daily jeer and jar, 80

From shame and shame's outbraving too,

Is rest not sometimes sweet to you? –

But most from the hatefulness of man

Who spares not to end what he began.

Whose acts are ill and his speech ill, 85

Who, having used you at his will,

Thrusts you aside as when I dine

I serve the dishes and the wine.

Well, handsome Jenny mine, sit up,

I've filled our glasses, let us sup, 90

And do not let me think of you,

Lest shame of yours suffice for two.

What, still so tired? Well, well then, keep

Your head there, so you do not sleep;

But that the weariness may pass 95

And leave you merry, take this glass.

Ah! lazy lily hand, more bless'd

If ne'er in rings it had been dress'd

Nor ever by a glove conceal'd!

Behold the lilies of the field, 100

They toil not neither do they spin;

(So doth the ancient text begin, –

Not of such rest as one of these

Can share.) Another rest and ease

Along each summer-sated path 105

From its new lord the garden hath,

Than that whose spring in blessings ran

91

Which praised the bounteous husbandman,

Ere yet, in days of hankering breath,

The lilies sickened unto death. 110

What, Jenny, are your lilies dead?

Aye, and the snow-white leaves are spread

Like winter on the garden-bed.

But you had roses left in May, –

They were not gone too. Jenny, nay, 115

But must your roses die, and those

Their purfled buds that should unclose?

Even so; the leaves are curled apart,

Still red as from the broken heart,

And here's the naked stem of thorns. 120

Nay, nay, mere words. Here nothing warns

As yet of winter. Sickness here

Or want alone could waken fear, –

Nothing but passion wrings a tear.

Except when there may rise unsought 125

Haply at times a passing thought

Of the old days which seem to be

Much older than any history

That is written in any book;

When she would lie in fields and look 130

Along the ground through the blown grass,

And wonder where the city was,

Far out of sight, whose broil and bale

They told her then for a child's tale.

Jenny, you know the city now. 135

A child can tell the tale there, how

Some things which are not yet enroll'd

In market-lists are bought and sold

Even till the early Sunday light,

When Saturday night is market-night 140

Everywhere, be it dry or wet,

And market-night in the Haymarket.

Our learned London children know,

Poor Jenny, all your pride and woe;

Have seen your lifted silken skirt 145

Advertise dainties through the dirt;

Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke

On virtue; and have learned your look

When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare

Along the streets alone, and there, 150

Round the long park, across the bridge,

The cold lamps at the pavement's edge

Wind on together and apart,

A fiery serpent for your heart.

92

Let the thoughts pass, an empty cloud! 155

Suppose I were to think aloud, –

What if to her all this were said?

Why, as a volume seldom read

Being opened halfway shuts again,

So might the pages of her brain 160

Be parted at such words, and thence

Close back upon the dusty sense.

For is there hue or shape defin'd

In Jenny's desecrated mind,

Where all contagious currents meet, 165

A Lethe of the middle street?

Nay, it reflects not any face,

Nor sound is in its sluggish pace,

But as they coil those eddies clot,

And night and day remember not. 170

Why, Jenny, you're asleep at last! –

Asleep, poor Jenny, hard and fast, –

So young and soft and tired; so fair,

With chin thus nestled in your hair,

Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue 175

As if some sky of dreams shone through!

Just as another woman sleeps!

Enough to throw one's thoughts in heaps

Of doubt and horror, – what to say

Or think, – this awful secret sway, 180

The potter's power over the clay!

Of the same lump (it has been said)

For honour and dishonour made,

Two sister vessels. Here is one.

My cousin Nell is fond of fun, 185

And fond of dress, and change, and praise,

So mere a woman in her ways:

And if her sweet eyes rich in youth

Are like her lips that tell the truth,

My cousin Nell is fond of love. 190

And she's the girl I'm proudest of.

Who does not prize her, guard her well?

The love of change, in cousin Nell,

Shall find the best and hold it dear:

The unconquered mirth turn quieter 195

Not through her own, through others' woe:

The conscious pride of beauty glow

Beside another's pride in her,

One little part of all they share.

For Love himself shall ripen these 200

93

In a kind soil to just increase

Through years of fertilizing peace.

Of the same lump (as it is said)

For honour and dishonour made,

Two sister vessels. Here is one. 205

It makes a goblin of the sun.

So pure, - so fall'n! How dare to think

Of the first common kindred link?

Yet, Jenny, till the world shall burn

It seems that all things take their turn; 210

And who shall say but this fair tree

May need, in changes that may be,

Your children's children's charity?

Scorned then, no doubt, as you are scorn'd!

Shall no man hold his pride forewarn'd 215

Till in the end, the Day of Days,

At Judgement, one of his own race,

As frail and lost as you, shall rise, –

His daughter, with his mother's eyes?

How Jenny's clock ticks on the shelf! 220

Might not the dial scorn itself

That has such hours to register?

Yet as to me, even so to her

Are golden sun and silver moon,

In daily largesse of earth's boon, 225

Counted for life-coins to one tune.

And if, as blindfold fates are toss'd,

Through some one man this life be lost,

Shall soul not somehow pay for soul?

Fair shines the gilded aureole 230

In which our highest painters place

Some living woman's simple face.

And the stilled features thus descried

As Jenny's long throat droops aside, –

The shadows where the cheeks are thin, 235

And pure wide curve from ear to chin, –

With Raffael's or Da Vinci's hand

To show them to men's souls, might stand,

Whole ages long, the whole world through,

For preachings of what God can do. 240

What has man done here? How atone,

Great God, for this which man has done?

And for the body and soul which by

Man's pitiless doom must now comply

With lifelong hell, what lullaby 245

Of sweet forgetful second birth

94

Remains? All dark. No sign on earth

What measure of God's rest endows

The many mansions of his house.

If but a woman's heart might see 250

Such erring heart unerringly

For once! But that can never be.

Like a rose shut in a book

In which pure women may not look,

For its base pages claim control 255

To crush the flower within the soul;

where through each dead rose-leaf that clings,

Pale as transparent psyche-wings,

To the vile text, are traced such things

As might make lady's check indeed 260

More than a living rose to read;

So nought save foolish foulness may

Watch with hard eyes the sure decay;

And so the life-blood of this rose,

Puddled with shameful knowledge, flows 265

Through leaves no chaste hand may unclose:

Yet still it keeps such faded show

Of when 'twas gathered long ago,

That the crushed petals' lovely grain,

The sweetness of the sanguine stain, 270

Seen of a woman's eyes, must make

Her pitiful heart, so prone to ache,

Love roses better for its sake: –

Only that this can never be: –

Even so unto her sex is she. 275

Yet, Jenny, looking long at you,

The woman almost fades from view.

A cipher of man's changeless sum

Of lust, past, present, and to come,

Is left. A riddle that one shrinks 280

To challenge from the scornful sphinx.

Like a toad within a stone

Seated while Time crumbles on;

Which sits there since the earth was curs'd

For Man's transgression at the first; 285

Which, living through all centuries,

Not once has seen the sun arise;

Whose life, to its cold circle charmed,

The earth's whole summers have not warmed;

Which always - whitherso the stone 290

Be flung - sits there, deaf, blind, alone; –

Aye, and shall not be driven out

95

Till that which shuts him round about

Break at the very Master's stroke,

And the dust thereof vanish as smoke, 295

And the seed of Man vanish as dust: –

Even so within this world is Lust.

Come, come, what use in thoughts like this?

Poor little Jenny, good to kiss, –

You'd not believe by what strange roads 300

Thought travels, when your beauty goads

A man to-night to think of toads!

Jenny, wake up.... Why, there's the dawn!

And there's an early waggon drawn

To market, and some sheep that jog 305

Bleating before a barking dog;

And the old streets come peering through

Another night that London knew;

And all as ghostlike as the lamps.

So on the wings of day decamps 310

My last night's frolic. Glooms begin

To shiver off as lights creep in

Past the gauze curtains half drawn-to,

And the lamp's doubled shade grows blue, –

Your lamp, my Jenny, kept alight, 315

Like a wise virgin's, all one night!

And in the alcove coolly spread

Glimmers with dawn your empty bed;

And yonder your fair face I see

Reflected lying on my knee, 320

Where teems with first foreshadowings

Your pier-glass scrawled with diamond rings.

And now without, as if some word

Had called upon them that they heard,

The London sparrows far and nigh 325

Clamour together suddenly;

And Jenny's cage-bird grown awake

Here in their song his part must take,

Because here too the day doth break.

And somehow in myself the dawn 330

Among stirred clouds and veils withdrawn

Strikes greyly on her. Let her sleep.

But will it wake her if I heap

These cushions thus beneath her head

Where my knee was? No, - there's your bed, 335

My Jenny, while you dream. And there

I lay among your golden hair

96

Perhaps the subject of your dreams,

These golden coins.

For still one deems

That Jenny's flattering sleep confers 340

New magic on the magic purse, –

Grim web, how clogged with shrivelled flies!

Between the threads fine fumes arise

And shape their pictures in the brain.

There roll no streets in glare and rain, 345

Nor flagrant man-swine whets his tusk;

But delicately sighs in musk

The homage of the dim boudoir;

Or like a palpitating star

Thrilled into song, the opera-night 350

Breathes faint in the quick pulse of light;

Or at the carriage-window shine

Rich wares for choice; or, free to dine,

Whirls through its hour of health (divine

For her) the concourse of the Park. 355

And though in the discounted dark

Her functions there and here are one,

Beneath the lamps and in the sun

There reigns at least the acknowledged belle

Apparelled beyond parallel. 360

Ah Jenny, yes, we know your dreams.

For even the Paphian Venus seems

A goddess o'er the realms of love,

When silver-shrined in shadowy grove:

Aye, or let offerings nicely placed 365

But hide Priapus to the waist,

And whoso looks on him shall see

An eligible deity.

Why, Jenny, waking here alone

May help you to remember one, 370

Though all the memory's long outworn

Of many a double-pillowed morn.

I think I see you when you wake,

And rub your eyes for me, and shake

My gold, in rising, from your hair, 375

A Danaë for a moment there.

Jenny, my love rang true! for still

Love at first sight is vague, until

That tinkling makes him audible.

And must I mock you to the last, 380

Ashamed of my own shame, - aghast

Because some thoughts not born amiss

97

Rose at a poor fair face like this?

Well, of such thoughts so much I know:

In my life, as in hers, they show, 385

By a far gleam which I may near,

A dark path I can strive to clear.

Only one kiss. Good-bye, my dear.

Rose Mary

Of her two fights with the Beryl-stone:

Lost the first, but the second won.

PART I

'Mary mine that art Mary's Rose

Come into me from the garden-close.

The sun sinks fast with the rising dew,

And we marked not how the faint moon grew;

But the hidden stars are calling you. 5

'Tall Rose Mary, come to my side,

And read the stars if you'd be a bride

In hours whose need was not your own,

While you were a young maid yet ungrown,

You've read the stars in the Beryl-stone. 10

'Daughter, once more I bid you read;

But now let it be for your own need:

Because to-morrow, at break of day,

To Holy Cross he rides on his way,

Your knight Sir James of Heronhaye. 15

'Ere he wed you, flower of mine,

For a heavy shrift he seeks the shrine.

Now hark to my words and do not fear;

Ill news next I have for your ear;

But be you strong, and our help is here. 20

'On his road, as the rumour's rife,

An ambush waits to take his life.

He needs will go, and will go alone;

Where the peril lurks may not be known;

But in this glass all things are shown.' 25

Pale Rose Mary sank to the floor:-

98

'The night will come if the day is o'er!'

'Nay, heaven takes counsel, star with star,

And help shall reach your heart from afar:

A bride you'll be, as a maid you are.' 30

The lady unbound her jewelled zone

And drew from her robe the Beryl-stone.

Shaped it was to a shadowy sphere, –

World of our world. the sun's compeer,

That bears and buries the toiling year. 35

With shuddering light 'twas stirred and strewn

Like the cloud-nest of the wading moon:

Freaked it was as the bubble's ball,

Rainbow-hued through a misty pall

Like the middle light of the waterfall. 40

Shadows dwelt in its teeming girth

Of the known and unknown things of earth;

The cloud above and the wave around, –

The central fire at the sphere's heart bound,

Like doomsday prisoned underground. 45

A thousand years it lay in the sea

With a treasure wrecked from Thessaly;

Deep it lay 'mid the coiled sea-wrack,

But the ocean-spirits found the track:

A soul was lost to win it back. 50

The lady upheld the wondrous thing: –

'Ill fare' (she said) 'with a fiend's-fairing:

But Moslem blood poured forth like wine

Can hallow Hell, 'neath the Sacred Sign;

And my lord brought this from Palestine. 55

'Spirits who fear the Blessed

Rood Drove forth the accursed multitude

That heathen worship housed herein, –

Never again such home to win,

Save only by a Christian's sin. 60

'All last night at an altar fair

I burnt strange fires and strove with prayer;

Till the flame paled to the red sunrise,

All rites I then did solemnize;

And the spell lacks nothing but your eyes.' 65

Low spake maiden Rose Mary: –

'O mother mine, if I should not see!'

'Nay, daughter, cover your face no more,

But bend love's heart to the hidden lore,

99

And you shall see now as heretofore.' 70

Paler yet were the pale cheeks grown

As the grey eyes sought the Beryl-stone:

Then over her mother's lap leaned she,

And stretched her thrilled throat passionately,

And sighed from her soul, and said, 'I see.' 75

Even as she spoke, they two were 'ware

Of music-notes that fell through the air;

A chiming shower of strange device,

Drop echoing drop, once twice and thrice,

As rain may fall in Paradise. 80

An instant come, in an instant gone,

No time there was to think thereon.

The mother held the sphere on her knee: –

'Lean this way and speak low to me,

And take no note but of what you see.' 85

'I see a man with a besom grey

That sweeps the flying dust away.'

'Ay, that comes first in the mystic sphere;

But now that the way is swept and clear,

Heed well what next you look on there.' 90

'Stretched aloft and adown I see

Two roads that part in waste-country:

The glen lies deep and the ridge stands tall;

What's great below is above seen small,

And the "hill-side is the valley-wall.' 95

'Stream-bank, daughter, or moor and moss,

Both roads will take to Holy Cross.

The hills are a weary waste to wage;

But what of the valley-road's presage?

That way must tend his pilgrimage.' 100

'As 'twere the turning leaves of a book,

The road runs past me as I look;

Or it is even as though mine eye

Should watch calm waters filled with sky

While lights and clouds and wings went by.' 105

'In every covert seek a spear;

They'll scarce lie close till he draws near.'

'The stream has spread to a river now;

The stiff blue sedge is deep in the slough,

But the hanks are bare of shrub or bough.' 110

'Is there any roof that near at hand

100

Might shelter yield to a hidden band?'

'On the further bank I see but one,

And a herdsman now in the sinking sun

Unyokes his team at the threshold-stone.' 115

'Keep heedful watch by the water's edge,

Some boat might lurk 'neath the shadowed sedge.'

'One slid but now 'twixt the winding shores,

But a peasant woman bent to the oars

And only a young child steered its course. 120

'Mother, something flashed to my sight! –

Nay, it is hut the lapwing's flight. –

What glints there like a lance that flees? –

Nay, the flags are stirred in the breeze,

And the water's bright through the dart-rushes. 125

'Ah! vainly I search from side to side: –

Woe's me! and where do the foemen hide?

Woe's me! and perchance I pass them by'

And under the new dawn's blood-red sky

Even where I gaze the dead shall lie.' 130

Said the mother: 'For dear love's sake,

Speak more low, lest the spell should break.'

Said the daughter: 'By love's control,

My eyes, my words, are strained to the goal;

But oh! the voice that cries in my soul!' 135

'Hush, sweet, hush! be calm and behold.'

'I see two floodgates broken and old:

The grasses wave o'er the ruined weir,

But the bridge still leads to the breakwater: 140

And - mother, mother, O mother dear!'

The damsel clung to her mother's knee,

And dared not let the shriek go free;

Low she crouched by the lady's chair,

And shrank blindfold in her fallen hair,

And whispering said, 'The spears are there!' 145

The lady stooped aghast from her place,

And cleared the locks from her daughter's face.

'More's to see, and she swoons, alas!

Look, look again, ere the moment pass!

One shadow comes but once to the glass. 150

'See you there what you saw but now?'

'I see eight men 'neath the willow bough.

All over the weir a wild growth's spread:

101

Ah me! it will hide a living head

As well as the water hides the dead. 155

'They lie by the broken water-gate

As men who have a while to wait.

The chief's high lance has a blazoned scroll,

He seems some lord of tithe and toll

With seven squires to his bannerole. 160

'The little pennon quakes in the air,

I cannot trace the blazon there: –

Ah! now I can see the field of blue,

The spurs and the merlins two and two; –

It is the Warden of Holycleugh!' 165

'God he thanked for the thing we know!

You have named your good knight's mortal foe.

Last Shrovetide in the tourney-game

He sought his life by treasonous shame;

And this way now doth he seek the same. 170

'So, fair lord, such a thing you are!

But we too watch till the morning star.

Well, June is kind and the moon is clear:

Saint Judas send you a merry cheer

For the night you lie at Warisweir! 175

'Now, sweet daughter, but one more sight,

And you may lie soft and sleep to-night.

We know in the vale what perils be:

Now look once more in the glass, and see

If over the hills the road lies free.' 180

Rose Mary pressed to her mother's cheek,

And almost smiled hut did not speak,

Then turned again to the saving spell,

With eyes to search and with lips to tell

The heart of things invisible. 185

'Again the shape with the besom grey

Comes back to sweep the clouds away.

Again I stand where the roads divide;

But now all's near on the steep hillside,

And a thread far down is the rivertide.' 190

'Ay, child, your road is o'er moor and moss,

Past Holycleugh to Holy Cross.

Our hunters lurk in the valley's wake,

As they knew which way the chase would take:

102

Yet search the hills for your true love's sake.' 195

'Swift and swifter the waste runs by,

And nought I see but the heath and the sky;

No brake is there that could hide a spear,

And the gaps to a horseman's sight lie clear;

Still past it goes, and there's nought to fear.' 200

'Fear no trap that you cannot see, –

They'd not lurk yet too warily.

Below by the weir they lie in sight,

And take no heed how they pass the night

Till close they crouch with the morning light.' 205

'The road shifts ever and brings in view

Now first the heights of Holycleugh:

Dark they stand o'er the vale below,

And hide that heaven which yet shall show

The thing their master's heart doth know. 210

'Where the road looks to the castle steep,

There are seven hill-clefts wide and deep:

Six mine eyes can search as they list,

But the seventh hollow is brimmed with mist:

If aught were there, it might not be wist.' 215

'Small hope, my girl, for a helm to hide

In mists that cling to a wild moorside:

Soon they melt with the wind and sun,

And scarce would wait such deeds to be done:

God send their snares be the worst to shun.' 220

'Still the road winds ever anew

As it hastens on towards Holycleugh;

And ever the great walls loom more near,

Till the castle-shadow, steep and sheer,

Drifts like a cloud, and the sky is clear.' 225

'Enough, my daughter,' the mother said,

And took to her breast the bending head;

'Rest, poor head, with my heart below,

While love still lulls you as long ago:

For all is learnt that we need to know. 230

'Long the miles and many the hours

From the castle-height to the abbey-towers;

But here the journey has no more dread;

Too thick with life is the whole road spread

For murder's trembling foot to tread.' 235

103

She gazed on the Beryl-stone full fain

Ere she wrapped it close in her robe again:

The flickering shades were dusk and dun,

And the lights throbbed faint in unison,

Like a high heart when a race is run. 240

As the globe slid to its silken gloom,

Once more a music rained through the room;

Low it splashed like a sweet star-spray,

And sobbed like tears at the heart of May,

And died as laughter dies away. 245

The lady held her breath for a space,

And then she looked in her daughter's face:

But wan Rose Mary had never heard;

Deep asleep like a sheltered bird

She lay with the long spell minister'd. 250

'Ah! and yet I must leave you, dear,

For what you have seen your knight must hear.

Within four days, by the help of God

He comes back safe to his heart's abode:

Be sure he shall shun the valley-road.' 255

Rose Mary sank with a broken moan,

And lay in the chair and slept alone,

Weary, lifeless, heavy as lead:

Long it was ere she raised her head

And rose up all discomforted. 260

She searched her brain for a vanished thing,

And clasped her brows, remembering;

Then knelt and lifted her eyes in awe,

And sighed with a long sigh sweet to draw: –

'Thank God, thank God, thank God I saw!' 265

The lady had left her as she lay

To seek the Knight of Heronhaye.

But first she clomb by a secret stair,

And knelt at a carven altar fair,

And laid the precious Beryl there. 270

Its girth was graved with a mystic rune

In a tongue long dead 'neath sun and moon:

A priest of the Holy Sepulchre

Read that writing and did not err;

And her lord had told its sense to her. 275

She breathed the words in an undertone: -

104

'None sees here but the pure alone.'

'And oh!' she said, 'what. rose may be

In Mary's bower more pure to see

Than my own sweet maiden Rose Mary?' 280

BERYL-SONG

We whose home is the Beryl,

Fire-spirit of dread desire,

Who entered in

By a secret sin,

'Gainst whom all powers that strive with ours are sterile, - 285

We cry, Woe to thee, mother!

What hast thou taught her, the girl thy daughter,

That she and none other

Should this dark morrow to her deadly sorrow imperil?

What were her eyes 290

But the fiend's own spies,

O mother,

And shall We not fee her, our proper prophet and seër?

Go to her, mother,

Even thou, yea thou and none other, 295

Thou, from the Beryl.-

Her fee must thou take her,

Her fee that We send, and make her,

Even in this hour, her sin's unsheltered avower.

Whose steed did neigh, 300

Riderless, bridleless,

At her gate before it was day?

Lo! where doth hover

The soul of her lover?

She sealed his doom, she, she was the sworn approver, - 305

Whose eyes were so wondrous wise

Yet blind, ah! blind to his peril!

For stole not We in

Through a love-linked sin,

'Gainst whom all powers at war with ours are sterile, - 310

Fire-spirits of dread desire,

We whose home is the Beryl?

105

PART II 'Pale Rose Mary, what shall be done

With a rose that Mary weeps upon,'

'Mother, let it fall from the tree, 315

And never walk where the strewn leaves be

Till winds have passed and the path is free.' 'Sad Rose Mary, what shall be done

With a cankered flower beneath the sun?'

'Mother, let it wait for the night; 320

Be sure its shame shall be out of sight

Ere the moon pale or the east grow light.'

'Lost Rose Mary, what shall be done

With a heart that is but a broken one?'

'Mother, let it lie where it must; 325

The blood was drained with the bitter thrust,

And dust is all that sinks in the dust.'

'Poor Rose Mary, what shall I do,'-

I, your mother, that lovèd you?'

'O my mother, and is love gone? 330

Then seek you another love anon:

Who cares what shame shall lean upon?'

Low drooped trembling Rose Mary,

Then up as though in a dream stood she.

'Come, my heart, it is time to go; 335

This is the hour that has whispered low

When thy pulse quailed in the nights we know.

'Yet O my heart, thy shame has a mate

Who will not leave thee desolate.

Shame for shame, yea and sin for sin: 340

Yet peace at length may our poor souls win

If love for love be found therein.

'O thou who seek'st our shrift to-day,'

She cried, 'O James of Heronhaye-

Thy sin and mine was for love alone; 345

And oh! in the sight of God 'tis known

How the heart has since made heavy moan.

'Three days yet!' she said to her heart;

'But then he comes, and we will not part.

God, God he thanked that I still could see! 350

Oh! he shall come back assuredly,

But where, alas! must he seek for me?

106

'O my heart. what road shall we roam

Till my wedding-music fetch me home?

For love's shut from us and bides afar, 355

And scorn leans over the bitter bar

And knows us now for the thing we are,

Tall she stood with a cheek flushed high

And a gaze to burn the heart-strings by.

'Twas the lightning-flash o'er sky and plain 360

Ere labouring thunders heave the chain

From the floodgates of the drowning rain.

The mother looked on the daughter still

As on a hurt thing that's yet to kill.

Then wildly at length the pent tears came; 365

The love swelled high with the swollen shame,

And their hearts' tempest burst on them.

Closely locked, they clung without speech,

And the mirrored souls shook each to each,

As the cloud-moon and the water-moon 370

Shake face to face when the dim stars swoon

In stormy bowers of the night's mid-noon.

They swayed together, shuddering sore,

Till the mother's heart could bear no more.

'Twas death to feel her own breast shake 375

Even to the very throb and ache

Of the burdened heart she still must break.

All her sobs ceased suddenly,

And she sat straight up but scarce could see.

'O daughter, where should my speech begin? 380

Your heart held fast its secret sin:

How think you, child, that I read therein?'

'Ah me! but I thought not how it came

When your words showed that you knew my shame:

And now that you call me still your own, 385

I half forget you have ever known,

Did you read my heart in the Beryl-stone?'

The lady answered her mournfully: –

'The Beryl-stone has no voice for me:

But when you charged its power to show 390

The truth which none but the pure may know,

Did naught speak once of a coming woe?'

Her hand was close to her daughter's heart,

107

And it felt the life-blood's sudden start:

A quick deep breath did the damsel draw 395

Like the struck fawn in the oakenshaw:

'O mother,' she cried, 'but still I saw!'

'O child, my child, why held you apart

From my great love your hidden heart?

Said I not that all sin must chase 400

From the spell's sphere the spirits of grace,

And yield their rule to the evil race?

'Ah! would to God I had clearly told

How strong those powers, accurst of old:

Their heart is the ruined house of lies; 405

O girl, they can seal the sinful eyes,

Or show the truth by contraries!'

The daughter sat as cold as a stone,

And spoke no word but gazed alone,

Nor moved, though her mother strove a space 410

To clasp her round in a close embrace,

Because she dared not see her face.

'Oh!' at last did the mother cry,

'Be sure, as he loved you, so will I!

Ah! still and dumb is the bride, I trow; 415

But cold and stark as the winter snow

Is the bridegroom's heart, laid dead below!

'Daughter, daughter, remember you

That cloud in the hills by Holycleugh?

'Twas a Hell-screen, hiding truth away: 420

There, not i' the vale, the ambush lay,

And thence was the dead borne home to-day.'

Deep the flood and heavy the shock

When sea meets sea in the riven rock:

But calm is the pulse that shakes the sea 425

To the prisoned tide of doom set free

In the breaking heart of Rose Mary.

Once she sprang as the heifer springs

With the wolf's teeth at its red heart-strings.

First 'twas fire in her breast and brain. 430

And then scarce hers but the whole world's pain,

As she gave one shriek and sank again.

In the hair dark-waved the face lay white

As the moon lies in the lap of night;

108

And as night through which no moon may dart 435

Lies on a pool in the woods apart,

So lay the swoon on the weary heart.

The lady felt for the bosom's stir,

And wildly kissed and called on her;

Then turned away with a quick footfall, 440

And slid the secret door in the wall

And clomb the strait stair's interval.

There above in the altar-cell

A little fountain rose and fell:

She set a flask to the water's flow, 445

And, backward hurrying, sprinkled now

The still cold breast and the pallid brow.

Scarce cheek that warmed or breath on the air,

Yet something told that life was there.

'Ah! not with the heart the body dies!' 450

The lady moaned in a bitter wise;

Then wrung her hands and hid her eyes.

'Alas! and how may I meet again

In the same poor eyes the selfsame pain?

What help can I seek, such grief to guide? 455

Ah! one alone might avail,' she cried. -

'The priest who prays at the dead man's side.'

The lady arose, and sped down all

The winding stairs to the castle-hall.

Long-known valley and wood and stream, 460

As the loopholes passed, naught else did seem

Than the torn threads of a broken dream.

The hall was full of the castle-folk;

The women wept, but the men scarce spoke.

As the lady crossed the rush-strewn floor, 465

The throng fell backward, murmuring sore,

And pressed outside round the open door

A stranger shadow hung on the hall

Than the dark pomp of a funeral.

'Mid common sights that were there alway, 470

As 'twere a chance of the passing day,

On the ingle-bench the dead man lay.

A priest who passed by Holycleugh

The tidings brought when the day was new.

He guided them who had fetched the dead; 475

And since that hour, unwearièd,

109

He knelt in prayer at the low bier's head.

Word had gone to his own domain

That in evil wise the knight was slain:

Soon the spears must gather apace 480

And the hunt be hard on the hunters' trace;

But all things yet lay still for a space.

As the lady's hurried step drew near,

The kneeling priest looked up to her.

'Father, death is a grievous thing; 485

But oh! the woe has a sharper sting

That craves by me your ministering.

'Alas for the child that should have wed

This noble knight here lying dead!

Dead in hope, with all blessed boon 490

Of love thus rent from her heart ere noon,

I left her laid in a heavy swoon

'O haste to the open bower-chamber

That's topmost as you mount the stair:

Seek her, father, ere yet she wake; 495

Your words, not mine, be the first to slake

This poor heart's fire, for Christ's sweet sake!

'God speed!' she said as the priest passed through,

'And I ere long will be with you.'

Then low on the hearth her knee sank prone; 500

She signed all folk from the threshold-stone,

And gazed in the dead man's face alone.

The fight for life found record yet

In the clenched lips and the teeth hard-set;

The wrath from the bent brow was not gone, 505

And stark in the eyes the hate still shone

Of that they last had looked upon.

The blazoned coat was rent on his breast

Where the golden field was goodliest;

But the shivered sword, close-gripped, could tell 510

That the blood shed round him where he fell

Was not all this in the distant dell.

The lady recked of the corpse no whit,

But saw the soul and spoke to it:

A light there was in her steadfast eyes, - 515

The fire of mortal tears and sighs

That pity and love immortalize.

110

'By thy death have I learnt to-day

Thy deed, O James of Heronhaye!

Great wrong thou hast done to me and mine; 520

And haply God hath wrought for a sign

By our blind deed this doom of thine.

'Thy shrift, alas! thou wast not to win;

But may death shrive thy soul herein!

Full well do I know thy love should be 525

Even yet - had life but stayed with thee –

Our honour's strong security.'

She stooped, and said with a sob's low stir, -

'Peace be thine, - but what peace for her?'

But ere to the brow her lips were press'd, 530

She marked, half-hid in the riven vest,

A packet close to the dead man's breast.

'Neath surcoat pierced and broken mail

It lay on the blood-stained bosom pale.

The clot clung round it, dull and dense, 535

And a faintness seized her mortal sense

As she reached her hand and drew it thence.

'Twas steeped in the heart's flood welling high

From the heart it there had rested by: 'Twas glued to a broidered fragment gay, - 540 A shred by spear-thrust rent away From the heron-wings of Heronhaye.

She gazed on the thing with piteous eyne: -

'Alas, poor child, some pledge of thine!

Ah me! in this troth the hearts were twain, 545

And one hath ebbed to this crimson stain,

And when shall the other throb again?' She opened the packet heedfully;

The blood was stiff, and it scarce might be.

She found but a folded paper there, 550

And round it, twined with tenderest care,

A long bright tress of golden hair.

Even as she looked, she saw again

That dark-haired face in its swoon of pain:

It seemed a snake with a golden sheath 555

Crept near, as a slow flame flickereth,

And stung her daughter's heart to death.

She loosed the tress, but her hand did shake

As though indeed she had touched a snake;

111

And next she undid the paper's fold, 560

But that too trembled in her hold,

And the sense scarce grasped the tale it told.

'My heart's sweet lord,' ('twas thus she read,)

'At length our love is garlanded.

At Holy Cross, within eight days' space, 565

1 seek my shrift; and the time and place

Shall fit thee too for thy soul's good grace.

'From Holycleugh on the seventh day

My brother rides, and bides away:

And long or e'er he is back, mine own, 570

Afar where the face of fear's unknown

We shall be safe with our love alone.

'Ere yet at the shrine my knees I bow,

I shear one tress for our holy vow.

As round these words these threads I wind, 575

So, eight days hence, shall our loves be twined

Says my lord's poor lady, JOCELIND.'

She read it twice, with a brain in thrall,

And then its echo told her all.

O'er brows low-fall'n her hands she drew: - 580

'O God!' she said, as her hands fell too, -

'The Warden's sister of Holycleugh!'

She rose upright with a long low moan

And stared in the dead man's face new-known.

Had it lived indeed? She scarce could tell: 585

'Twas a cloud where fiends had come to dwell

A mask that hung on the gate of Hell.

She lifted the lock of gleaming hair

And smote the lips and left it there.

'Here's gold that Hell shall take for thy toll! 590

Full well hath thy treason found its goal,

O thou dead body and damnèd soul!'

She turned, sore dazed, for a voice was near,

And she knew that some one called to her.

On many a column fair and tall 595

A high court ran round the castle-hall;

And thence it was that the priest did call

'I sought your child where you bade me go,

And in rooms around and rooms below;

But where, alas! may the maiden be? 600

Fear nought, - we shall find her speedily, -

112

But come, come hither, and seek with me.'

She reached the stair like a lifelorn thing.

But hastened upward murmuring: -

'Yea, Death's is a face that's fell to see; 605

But bitterer pang Life hoards for thee,

Thou broken heart of Rose Mary!'

BERYL-SONG

We whose throne is the Beryl,

Dire-gifted spirits of fire,

Who for a twin 610

Leash Sorrow to Sin,

Who on no flower refrain to lour with peril, -

We cry, - O desolate daughter!

Thou and thy mother share newer shame with each other

Than last night's slaughter. 615

Awake and tremble, for our curses assemble!

What more, that thou knowst not yet, -

That life nor death shall forget?

No help from Heaven, - thy woes heart--riven are sterile!

O once a maiden, 620

With yet worse sorrow can any morrow be laden?

It waits for thee,

It looms, it must be, O lost among women, -

It comes and thou canst not flee. 625

Amen to the omen,

Says the voice of the Beryl.

Thou sleep'st? Awake, -

What dar'st thou yet for his sake,

Who each for other did God's own Future imperil? 630

Dost dare to live

'Mid the pangs each hour must give?

Nay, rather die, -

With him thy lover 'neath Hell's cloud-cover to fly, -

Hopeless, yet not apart, 635

Cling heart to heart,

And beat through the nether storm-eddying winds together?

Shall this be so?

There thou shalt meet him, but mayst thou greet him?

ah no ! 640

He loves, but thee he hoped nevermore to see, -

He sighed as he died,

But with never a thought for thee.

Alone !

Alone, for ever alone, - 645

Whose eyes were such wondrous spies for the fate foreshown!

Lo! have not We leashed the twin

Of endless Sorrow to Sin, -

113

Who on no flower refrain to lour with peril, -

Dire-gifted spirits of fire, 650

We whose throne is the Beryl? PART III A swoon that breaks is the whelming wave

When help comes late hut still can save.

With all blind throes is the instant rife, -

Hurtling clangour and clouds at strife, - 655

The breath of death, hut the kiss of life.

The night lay deep on Rose Mary's heart,

For her swoon was death's kind counterpart:

The dawn broke dim on Rose Mary's soul, -

No hill-crown's heavenly aureole, 660

But a wild gleam on a shaken shoal.

Her senses gasped in the sudden air,

And she looked around, hut none was there.

He felt the slackening frost distil

Through her blood the last ooze dull and chill: 665

Her lids were dry and her lips were still. Her tears had flooded her heart again;

As after a long day's bitter rain,

At dusk when the wet flower-cups shrink,

from the drops run in from the beaded brink 670

And all the close-shut petals drink.

Again her sighs on her heart were rolled;

As the wind that long has swept the wold, -

Whose moan was made with the moaning sea, -

Beats out its breath in the last torn tree, 675

And sinks at length in lethargy.

She knew she had waded bosom-deep

Along death's bank in the sedge of sleep:

All else was lost to her clouded mind;

Nor, looking back, could she see defin'd 680

O'er the dim dumb waste what lay behind.

Slowly fades the sun from the wall

Till day lies dead on the sun-dial:

And now in Rose Mary's lifted eye

'Twas shadow alone that made reply 685

To the set face of the soul's dark sky. Yet still through her soul there wandered past

Dread phantoms borne on a wailing blast, -

Death and sorrow and sin and shame;

114

And, murmured still, to her lips there came 690

Her mother's and her lover's name. How to ask, and what thing to know?

She might not stay and she dared not go.

From fires unseen these smoke-clouds curled;

But where did the hidden curse lie furled? 695

And how to seek through the weary world?

With toiling breath she rose from the floor

And dragged her steps to an open door:

'Twas the secret panel standing wide,

As the lady's hand had led it bide 700

In hastening back to her daughter's side. She passed, but reeled with a dizzy brain

And smote the door which closed again.

She stood within by the darkling stair,

But her feet might mount more freely there, - 705

'Twas the open light most blinded her.

Within her mind no wonder grew

At the secret path she never knew:

All ways alike were strange to her now, -

One field bare-ridged from the spirit's plough, 710

One thicket black with the cypress-bough.

Once she thought that she heard her name;

And she paused, but knew not whence it came.

Down the shadowed stair a faint ray fell

That guided the weary footsteps well 715

Till it led her up to the altar-cell

No change there was on Rose Mary's face

As she leaned in the portal's narrow space:

Still she stood by the pillar's stem,

Hand and bosom and garment's hem, 720

As the soul stands by at the requiem.

The altar-cell was a dome low-lit,

And a veil hung in the midst of it:

At the pole-points of its circling girth

Four symbols stood of the world's first birth, - 725

Air and water and fire and earth.

To the north, a fountain glittered free;

To the south, there glowed a red fruit-tree;

To the cast, a lamp flamed high and fair;

To the west, a crystal casket rare 730

Held fast a cloud of the fields of air.

115

The painted walls were a mystic show

Of time's ebb-tide and overflow;

His hoards long-locked and conquering key,

His service-fires that in heaven be, 735

And earth-wheels whirled perpetually.

Rose Mary gazed from the open door

As on idle things she cared not for, -

The fleeting shapes of an empty tale;

Then stepped with a heedless visage pale, 740

And lifted aside the altar-veil.

The altar stood from its curved recess

In a coiling serpent's life-likeness:

Even such a serpent evermore

Lies deep asleep at the world's dark core 745

Till the last Voice shake the sea and shore.

From the altar-cloth a book rose spread

And tapers burned at the altar-head;

And there in the altar-midst alone,

'Twixt wings of a sculptured beast unknown, 750

Rose Mary saw the Beryl-stone.

Firm it sat 'twixt the hollowed wings,

As an orb sits in the hand of kings:

And lo! for that Foe whose curse far-flown

Had bound her life with a burning zone, 755

Rose Mary knew the Beryl-stone.

Dread is the meteor's blazing sphere

When the poles throb to its blind career;

But not with a light more grim and ghast

Thereby is the future doom forecast, 760

Than now this sight brought back the past.

The hours and minutes seemed to whirr

In a clanging swarm that deafened her;

They stung her heart to a writhing flame,

And marshalled past in its glare they came, - 765

Death and sorrow and sin and shame.

Round the Beryl's sphere she saw them pass

And mock her eyes from the fated glass:

One by one in a fiery train

The dead hours seemed to wax and wane, 770

And burned till all was known again.

From the drained heart's fount there rose no cry,

116

There sprang no tears, for the source was dry.

Held in the hand of some heavy law,

Her eyes she might not once withdraw, 775

Nor shrink away from the thing she saw.

Even as she gazed, through all her blood

The flame was quenched in a coming flood:

Out of the depth of the hollow gloom

On her soul's bare sands she felt it boom, – 780

The measured tide of a sea of doom.

Three steps she took through the altar-gate,

And her neck reared and her arms grew straight:

The sinews clenched like a serpent's throe,

And the face was white in the dark hair's flow, 785

As her hate beheld what lay below.

Dumb she stood in her malisons, –

A silver statue tressed with bronze:

As the fabled head by Perseus mown,

It seemed in sooth that her gaze alone 790

Had turned the carven shapes to stone.

O'er the altar-sides on either hand

There hung a dinted helm and brand:

By strength thereof, 'neath the Sacred Sign,

That bitter gift o'er the salt sea-brine 795

Her father brought from Palestine.

Rose Mary moved with a stern accord

And reached her hand to her father's sword;

Nor did she stir her gaze one whit

From the thing whereon her brows were knit; 800

But gazing still, she spoke to it.

'O ye, three times accurst,' she said,

'By whom this stone is tenanted!

Lo! there ye came by a strong sin's might;

Yet a sinner's hand that's weak to smite 805

Shall send you hence ere the day be night.

'This hour a clear voice bade me know

My hand shall work your overthrow:

Another thing in mine ear it spake, –

With the broken spell my life shall break. 810

I thank Thee, God, for the dear death's sake!

'And he Thy heavenly minister

Who swayed erewhile this spell-bound sphere, –

117

My parting soul let him haste to greet,

And none but he be guide for my feet 815

To where Thy rest is made complete.'

Then deep she breathed, with a tender moan: –

'My love, my lord, my only one!

Even as I held the cursed clue,

When thou, through me, these foul ones slew, – 820

By mine own deed shall they slay me too!

'Even while they speed to Hell, my love,

Two hearts shall meet in Heaven above.

Our shrift thou sought'st, but might'st not bring:

And oh! for me 'tis a blessed thing 825

To work hereby our ransoming.

'One were our hearts in joy and pain,

And our souls e'en now grow one again.

And O my love, if our souls are three,

O thine and mine shall the third soul be, – 830

One threefold love eternally.'

Her eyes were soft as she spoke apart,

And the lips smiled to the broken heart:

But the glance was dark and the forehead scored

With the bitter frown of hate restored, 835

As her two hands swung the heavy sword.

Three steps back from her Foe she trod: –

'Love, for thy sake! In Thy Name, O God!'

In the fair white hands small strength was shown;

Yet the blade flashed high and the edge fell prone, 840

And she cleft the heart of the Beryl-stone.

What living flesh in the thunder-cloud

Hath sat and felt heaven cry aloud?

Or known how the levin's pulse may beat?

Or wrapped the hour when the whirlwinds meet 845

About its breast for a winding-sheet?

Who hath crouched at the world's deep heart

While the earthquake rends its loins apart?

Or walked far under the seething main

While overhead the heavens ordain 850

The tempest-towers of the hurricane?

Who hath seen or what ear hath heard

The secret things unregister'd

Of the place where all is past and done,

And tears and laughter sound as one 855

118

In Hell's unhallowed unison?

Nay, is it writ how the fiends despair

In earth and water and fire and air?

Even so no mortal tongue may tell

How to the clang of the sword that fell 860

The echoes shook the altar-cell.

When all was still on the air again

The Beryl-stone lay cleft in twain;

The veil was rent from the riven dome;

And every wind that's winged to roam 865

Might have the ruined place for home.

The fountain no more glittered free;

The fruit hung dead on the leafless tree;

The flame of the lamp had ceased to flare;

And the crystal casket shattered there 870

Was emptied now of its cloud of air.

And lo! on the ground Rose Mary lay,

With a cold brow like the snows ere May,

With a cold breast like the earth till Spring,

With such a smile as the June days bring 875

When the year grows warm for harvesting.

The death she had won might leave no trace

On the soft sweet form and gentle face:

In a gracious sleep she seemed to lie;

And over her head her hand on high 880

Held fast the sword she triumphed by.

'Twas then a clear voice said in the room: –

'Behold the end of the heavy doom.

O come, - for thy bitter love's sake blest;

By a sweet path now thou journeyest, 885

And I will lead thee to thy rest.

'Me thy sin by Heaven's sore ban

Did chase erewhile from the talisman:

But to my heart, as a conquered home,

In glory of strength thy footsteps come 890

Who hast thus cast forth my foes therefrom.

'Already thy heart remembereth

No more his name thou sought'st in death:

For under all deeps, all heights above, –

So wide the gulf in the midst thereof, – 895

Are Hell of Treason and Heaven of Love.

119

'Thee' true soul shall thy truth prefer

To blessed Mary's rose-bower:

Warmed and lit is thy place afar

With guerdon-fires of the sweet Love-star 900

Where hearts of steadfast lovers are: -

'Though naught for the poor corpse lying here

Remain to-day but the cold white bier

But burial-chaunt and bended knee,

But sighs and tears that heaviest be, 905

But rent rose-flower and rosemary.'

BERYL-SONG

We, cast forth from the Beryl,

Gyre-circling spirits of fire,

Whose pangs begin

With God's grace to sin, 910

For whose spent powers the immortal hours are sterile, -

Woe! must We behold this mother

Find grace in her dead child's face, and doubt of none other

But that Perfect Pardon, alas! hath assured her guerdon?

Woe! must We behold this daughter, 915

Made clean from the soil of sin wherewith We had fraught her,

Shake off a man's blood like water?

Write up her story

On the Gate of Heaven's glory,

Whom there We behold so fair in shining apparel, 920

And beneath her the ruin

Of our own undoing!

Alas, the Beryl!

We had for a foeman

But one weak woman; 925

In one day's strife,

Her hope fell dead from her life;

And yet no iron,

Her soul to environ,

Could this manslayer, this false soothsayer imperil! 930

Lo, where she bows

In the Holy House!

Who now shall dissever her soul from its joy for ever,

While every ditty

Of love and plentiful pity 935

Fills the White City,

And the floor of Heaven to her feet for ever is given?

Hark, a voice cries 'Flee!'

Woe! woe! What shelter have We,

Whose pangs begin 940

120

With God's grace to sin

For whose spent powers the immortal hours are sterile,

Gyre-circling spirits of fire,

We, cast forth from the Beryl?

Body's Beauty

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told

(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)

That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,

And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old, 5

And, subtly of herself contemplative,

Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,

Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where

Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent 10

And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?

Lo! As that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went

Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent

And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

Eden Bower

It was Lilith the wife of Adam:

(Eden bower's in flower.)

Not a drop of her blood was human,

But she was made like a soft sweet woman.

Lilith stood on the skirts of Eden; 5

(And O the bower and the hour!)

She was the first that thence was driven;

With her was hell and with Eve was heaven.

In the ear of the Snake said Lilith: -

(Eden bower's in flower.) 10

'To thee I come when the rest is over;

A snake was I when thou wast my lover.

'I was the fairest snake in Eden:


121

By the earth's will, new form and feature 15

Made me a wife for the earth's new creature.

'Take me thou as I come from Adam:


Once again shall my love subdue thee;

The past is past and I am come to thee. 20

'O but Adam was thrall to Lilith!


All the threads of my hair are golden,

And there in a net his heart was holden.

'O and Lilith was queen of Adam!: 25


All the day and the night together

My breath could shake his soul like a feather.

'What great joys had Adam and Lilith! -

(And O the bower and the hour!) 30

Sweet close rings of the serpent's twining,

As heart in heart lay sighing and pining.

'What bright babes had Lilith and Adam! -


Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters, 35

Glittering sons and radiant daughters.

'O thou God, the Lord God of Eden!


Say, was this fair body for no man,

That of Adam's flesh thou mak'st him a woman? 40

'O thou Snake. the King-snake of Eden!


God's strong will our necks are under,

But thou and I may cleave it in sunder.

'Help, sweet Snake, sweet lover of Lilith! 45


And let God learn how I loved and hated

Man in the image of God created.

'Help me once against Eve and Adam!


Help me once for this one endeavour,

And then my love shall be thine for ever!

'Strong is God, the fell foe of Lilith:


122

Nought in heaven or earth may affright him; 55

But join thou with me and we will smite him.

'Strong is God, the great God of Eden:


Over all He made He hath power;

But lend me thou thy shape for an hour! 60

'Lend thy shape for the love of Lilith!


Look, my mouth and my check are ruddy,

And thou art cold, and fire is my body.

'Lend thy shape for the hate of Adam! 65


That he may wail my joy that forsook him,

And curse the day when the bride-sleep took him.

'Lend thy shape for the shame of Eden!


Is not the foe-God weak as the foeman

When love grows hate in the heart of a woman?

'Would'st thou know the heart's hope of Lilith?


Then bring thou close thine head till it glisten 75

Along my breast, and lip me and listen.

'Am I sweet, O sweet Snake of Eden?


Then ope thine ear to my warm mouth's cooing

And learn what deed remains for our doing. 80

'Thou didst hear when God said to Adam: –


"Of all this wealth I have made thee warden;

Thou'rt free to eat of the trees of the garden:

'"Only of one tree eat not in Eden 85


All save one I give to thy freewill, –

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil."

'O my love, come nearer to Lilith!


In thy sweet folds bind me and bend me,

And let me feel the shape thou shalt lend me!

In thy shape I'll go back to Eden;


123

In these coils that Tree will I grapple, 95

And stretch this crowned head forth by the apple.

'Lo, Eve bends to the breath of Lilith!


O how then shall my heart desire

All her blood as food to its fire! 100

'Lo, Eve bends to the words of Lilith! -


"Nay, this Tree's fruit, - why should ye hate it,

Or Death be born the day that ye ate it?

'"Nay, but on that great day in Eden. 105


By the help that in this wise Tree is,

God knows well ye shall be as He is."

'Then Eve shall eat and give unto Adam.


And then they both shall know they are naked,

And their hearts ache as my heart hath achèd.

'Aye, let them hide in the trees of Eden,


As in the cool of the day in the garden 115

God shall walk without pity or pardon.

'Hear, thou Eve, the man's heart in Adam!


Of his brave words hark to the bravest: -

"This the woman gave that thou gavest." 120

'Hear Eve speak, yea, list to her, Lilith!


Feast thine heart with words that shall sate it -

"This the serpent gave and I ate it."

'O proud Eve, cling close to thine Adam, 125


Driven forth as the beasts of his naming

By the sword that for ever is flaming.

'Know, thy path is known unto Lilith!


While the blithe birds sang at thy wedding,

There her tears grew thorns for thy treading.

'O my love, thou Love-snake of Eden!

124


O to-day and the day to come after! 135

Loose me, love, - give breath to my laughter!

'O bright Snake, the Death-worm of Adam!


Wreathe thy neck with my hair's bright tether,

And wear my gold and thy gold together! 140

'On that day on the skirts of Eden,


In thy shape shall I glide back to thee,

And in my shape for an instant view thee.

'But when thou'rt thou and Lilith is Lilith, 145


In what bliss past hearing or seeing

Shall each one drink of the other's being!

With cries of "Eve!" and "Eden!" and "Adam!"


How shall we mingle our love's caresses,

I in thy coils, and thou in my tresses!

'With those names, ye echoes of Eden,


Fire shall cry from my heart that burneth, – 155

"Dust he is and to dust returneth!"

'Yet to-day, thou master of Lilith, –


Wrap me round in the form I'll borrow

And let me tell thee of sweet to-morrow. 160

'In the planted garden eastward in Eden,


Where the river goes forth to water the garden,

The springs shall dry and the soil shall harden.

'Yea, where the bride-sleep fell upon Adam, 165


None shall hear when the storm-wind whistles

Through roses choked among thorns and thistles.

'Yea, beside the cast-gate of Eden,


Where God joined them and none might sever,

The sword turns this way and that for ever.

'What of Adam cast out of Eden?

125


Lo! with care like a shadow shaken, 175

He tills the hard earth whence he was taken.

'What of Eve too, cast out of Eden?


Nay, but she, the bride of God's giving,

Must yet be mother of all men living. 180

'Lo, God's grace, by the grace of Lilith!


To Eve's womb, from our sweet to-morrow,

God shall greatly multiply sorrow.

'Fold me fast, O God-snake of Eden! 185


What more prize than love to impel thee?

Grip and lip my limbs as I tell thee!

'Lo! two babes for Eve and for Adam!


Lo! sweet Snake, the travail and treasure, -

Two men-children born for their pleasure!

'The first is Cain and the second Abel:


The soul of one shall be made thy brother, 195

And thy tongue shall lap the blood of the other.'


Soul's Beauty

Under the arch of Life, where love and death

Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw

Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,

I drew it in as simply as my breath

Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, 5

The sky and the sea bend on thee, - which can draw,

By sea or sky or woman, to one law,

The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise

Thy voice and hand shake still, - long known to thee 10

By flying hair and fluttering hem, - the beat

Following her daily of thy heart and feet,

How passionately and irretrievably,

In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

126

Paintings

Fig. 1. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin

1848 – 1849

Oil on canvas

Tate Gallery London

127

Fig. 2 a. The Blessed Damozel 1875 – 1881

Oil on canvas

National Museums Liverpool

(Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight)

Fig. 2 b. The Blessed Damozel

1871 – 1878

Oil on canvas

The Fogg Art Museum,

Harvard University Art Museums

128

Fig. 3. Found

Oil on canvas

1854 – 1855/ 1859 – 1881

Delaware Art Museum

Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial

129

Lady Lilith 1868, 1872-73 Oil on canvas Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Fig. 4. Lady Lilith

1868

Oil on canvas

Delaware Art Museum

Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935

Fig. 5. Sibylla Palmifera 1865 – 1870 Oil on canvas National Museums Liverpool (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight)

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130

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