character of her own composition: it has no poetical value. It is Love's Name. p. 425.-This small ditty is introduced into the prose tale named Commonplace, finished in 1870, and published in the same year. supposed to be sung by certain young ladies in Greek costume, enacting a charade upon the word 'Love-apple.' Golden Holly, p. 426.-This trifle, owing to its associations of old and uninterrupted friendship, I was unwilling in 1896 to omit and I know now that I ought not to have omitted it, for Mr. Swinburne pronounced it an excellent thing. It was addressed to Holman [Holly] Frederic Stephens, then a little boy, son of our constant friend, Frederic George Stephens (one of the seven members of the P. R. B.'). Tennyson once saw the child in the Isle of Wight, and pronounced him (not unreasonably) to be 'the most beautiful boy I have ever seen.' Mr. Stephens senior, in sending me the verses at my request, wrote that they refer to H. F. S.'s frequent pet name of "The Golden Holly," given because of the brightness of his long hair, as well as his birthday being on October 31. He had sent a tea-rose to C. G. R.' Sing-song, p. 426.-The items of this series continue down to the one which begins Lie a-bed (p. 443). In the MS. of Sing-song Christina made a series of penand-ink sketches-slight and primitive of course, but not without suggestiveness. The MS., after lying perdu for a long time, has returned to my possession. Rhymes Dedicated to the Baby who suggested them, p. 426.-The baby son of Professor Arthur Cayley of Cambridge, the celebrated mathematician. The lines, 'I know a baby, such a baby,' were, I think, intended for this dedicatee. Kookoorookoo-Kikirikee, p. 426.—I may perhaps be pardoned for saying that these poultry-noises form a reminiscence from Christina's own childhood. Our father was in the habit of making" the noises to amuse his bantlings. Willie Wee, p. 441.-This was my mother's pet name for me in childhood; a second reminiscence. An Alphabet, p. 443.-This was printed in 1875, with some woodcuts, in some magazine; the headline of the pages is For Very Little Folks, which may or may not be the title of the magazine itself. It must be an American publication, as the verses are headed An Alphabet from England. Hadrian's Death-Song Translated, p. 444. In 1876 Mr. David Johnston, of Bath, formed the project of collecting various translations of the famous lines'Animula vagula blandula,' etc., and issuing them in a volume, which was privately printed. He looked up old translations, and invited new ones. Christina became one of his contributors, also our sister Maria and myself; Christina making an Italian as well as an English translation (see p. 453). My Mouse, p. 444.-This was not a 'mouse' in the ordinary sense, but a sea-mouse.' Mr. Cayley had picked it up on the seashore, and presented it to my sister, preserved in spirits. The seamouse was with her to the end, and may remain with me to the end; its brilliant iridescent hues are still vivid. The scientific name of this creature is Aphrodita aculeata; hence the allusion to Venus.' A Poor Old Dog, p. 444.-My sister was a very staunch supporter of the AntiVivisection Movement. In a letter to our brother (dated perhaps in 1879) she sent the present verses, with the following remarks: There has just been held a fancy sale at a house in Prince's Gate for the Anti-Vivisection cause, and having nothing else to contribute, I sent a dozen autographs as follows [then come the verses]. Of these, nine on the first day fetched 2s. 6d. or 3s., while one even brought in 10s. The remaining three, I hope, were disposed of on the closing day.' To William Bell Scott, p. 444.-These verses were sent to Mr. Scott in acknowledgment of a copy of his volume, A Poet's Harvest-Home, issued in April 1882. The reference to a heavy old heart' has no doubt to do with the death of Dante Rossetti, 9 April 1882. The verses were first published in Mr. Scott's Autobiographical Notes. Counterblast on Penny Trumpet, p. 444.-These rather neat lines are entirely out of my sister's ordinary groove, which fact (trifling as they are) makes me the more unwilling to leave them out. They stand signed 'C. G. R.: see St. James's | Gazette, 21 July 1882: motive, a Poem.' I infer (for I have not been at the pains of looking up the St. James's Gazette) that that newspaper contained some effusion censuring Mr. Bright for having quitted the Ministry after the bombardment of Alexandria, and also censuring Mr. Gladstone for continuing in the Ministry. My sister knew and cared next to nothing about party politics (apart from questions having a religions bearing); in all her later years, however, her feeling leaned more towards the Conservative than the Liberal cause. Mole and Earthworm, p. 445. -Here the title is mine. The lines were published in Time Flies, but not reproduced in the Verses of 1893, where they would have been quite inappropriate. To Mary Rossetti, p. 445. slight lines were addressed to daughter Mary, probably when from five to six. These my aged Versi, p. 446. In 1851-52 some young ladies (mostly living in the Regent's Park neighbourhood) had a fancy for getting up a little privately-printed magazine, which was termed The Bouquet from Marylebone Gardens. My sister name as was invited to contribute, and she consented to do so, writing always in Italian. Each contributor adopted some floral a signature; Christina was 'Calta.' These Versi, and also the following two compositions, come from this rather obscure source. Christina's principal contribution was in prose, not verse-a Corrispondenza Famigliare between two supposed young ladies, Italian and English, the former being at school. There are eight of these letters, rather neat performances in their way; and, no doubt, others would have followed but for the early decease of the magazine, the withering of the Bouquet. Nigella, p. 447.-In the Corrispondenza above named these verses are in troduced as being written by the Italian damsel to accommodate her English friend, who had been asked to produce some Italian lines for a lady's album. Chiesa e Signore, p. 447.-These lines appear in a scrap of MS. which is thus inscribed: Written out at Folkestone 6 August 1871, but date of composition not recollected by C. G. R.' I infer that the date of composition was then rather remote, pehaps towards 1860. Il Rosseggiar dell' Oriente, p. 447.For any quasi-explanation as to these singularly pathetic verses-'Love's very vesture and elect disguise,' the inborn idiom of a pure and impassioned heartI refer the reader to the Memoir. The verses were kept by Christina in the jealous seclusion of her writing-desk, and I suppose no human eye had looked upon them until I found them there after her death. Si rimanda la Tocca-caldaja, p. 448. -The phrase here, 'Se pur fumar nol puoi,' sounds odd. The lines were written in reply to other lines by Cayley named Si scusa la Tocca-caldaja. His final line contains the phrase, 'S'ei mi fumma,' and hence Christina's words in reply. Blumine risponde, p. 448.-In 'Blumine' the reader will recognize a name used by Carlyle in Sartor Resartus. Lassuso il caro Fiore, p. 449.-The main topic in this little poem must have some relation to what is touched upon in No. 3 of the series. Per Preferenza, p. 451.-To the first of these stanzas Christina has written the word Supposto'; to the second, 'Accertato'; to the third, Dedotto.' There must have been in her head some whimsical notion of logical sequence, or what not. I can understand it to some extent, without discussing it. L' Uommibatto, p. 453.-Christina took it upon her to Italianize in this form the name of the Wombat, which was a cherished pet animal of our brother. It will be understood that she is exhort- When wombats do inspire, : Adriano, p. 453.-See the note to P. 444. snatches of Italian verse are translations or paraphrases made by Christina from her own volume Sing-song. Our cousin Teodorico Pietrocola-Rossetti first made some translations from that book, whose title he rendered as Ninna-nanna; herein I follow his lead. His translations were felicitous. Inspirited by his example, Christina made other—and, I conceive, in poetic essentials still better -translations. Readers familiar with Sing-song will perceive that numerous compositions in that volume remain untranslated. Sognando, p. 458.-I give this title to two stanzas which I find written by Christina into a copy of our father's book of sacred poems-Il Tempo, ovvero Dis e Uomo, Salterio, 1843. The copy is one which he gave in the same year to his sister-in-law, Charlotte Polidori; as the latter lived on till January 1890, this copy would only at that date, most likely, have become Christina's property. This consideration and also the look of the handwriting induce me to suppose that the verses were written not earlier than 1890; they would thus be the last Italian verses which my sister produced. She has signed them thus: 'C. G. R., fired by papa's calling this metre difficult -the metre being the one adopted throughout the whole book Il Tempo in its original form. This MS. note might suggest a far earlier date for the lines; but, on the whole, I abide by my Ninna-nanna, p. 453.-The following own view as just expressed. INDEX TO FIRST LINES A Baby is a harmless thing, 158 A baby's cradle with no baby in it, 427 A boat that sails upon the sea, 415 A burdened heart that bleeds and bears, A chill blank world, yet over the utmost sea, 232 A city plum is not a plum, 427 A cold wind stirs the blackthorn, 122 A cup for hope, she said, 308 A dancing bear, grotesque and funny, 415 I A diamond or a coal? 438 A dream that waketh, 388 A fool I was to sleep at noon, 379 A garden in a garden, a green spot, 291 A holy Innocent gone home, 412 A house of cards, 440 A hundred, a thousand to one: even so, A is the alphabet, A at its head, 443 A million buds are born that never blow, A moon impoverished amid stars curtailed, 272 A motherless soft lambkin, 433 A night was near, a day was near, 280 A pocket handkerchief to hem, 431 A ring upon her finger, 437 A robin said, The spring will never come, A rose, a lily, and the Face of Christ, 226 A toadstool comes up in a night, 431 A voice said Follow follow, and I rose, 118 A windy shell singing upon the shore, 305 Addio, diletto amico, 447 After midnight in the dark, 126 Ah changed and cold, how changed and Ah Lord, Lord, if my heart were right with Ah Lord, we all have pierced Thee, wilt Ah me that I should be, 219 Ah well-a-day, and wherefore am I here? All the Robin Redbreasts, 393 All things are fair if we had eyes to see, All things that pass, 410 All through the livelong night I lay awake, 112 All weareth, all wasteth, 173 Alleluia or Alas my heart is crying, 135 Am I a stone and not a sheep, 234 Amico pesce, piover vorrà, 456 And who is this lies prostrate at thy feet? Angeli al capo, al piede, 453 Animuccia, vagantuccia, morbiduccia, 453 Arise, depart, for this is not your rest, Arrossisce la rosa-e perchè mai? 457 |