Evening star., 1933-01-17
|ROSSETTTS FAMOUS.
MANUSCRIPTS HERE.
Poems Buried in Wife's
Casket Placed on Exhibition
for First Time.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

The pale, white shadow of the blessed
damozel walks the halls of the Library
of Congress
The famous manuscripts, believed
identical with those which the English
poet. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, had
buried In his wifes coffin, have come to
light again, nearly a century after
ward, in the library vaults and have
just been placed on exhibition for the
first time.
Perhaps no other manuscripts on
earth have had so weird history as
these time -yellowed sheets. containing
some OF the finest verse OF the VIC
torian era. which the grief-stricken
poet gathered up on the day of his
wife's funeral and placed upon her
breast-intending to sacrifice his fame
to the departed inspiration OF his
genius.
Had Been His Inspiration.
The blessed damozel" was dead. She
1t was whom Rossetti had pictured
leaning over the gold bar of heaven
in the most famous of his poems. She
had been the inspiration of both his
poetry and his painting. He had loved
her sincerely, yet he had treated her
spitefully at times. In the storm OF
remorse that overwhelmed him as he
looked into her dead face, the poet was
unable to endure the prospect that his
fame should rest upon her sacrifice.
These poems-including the bulk OF
the famous sonnet sequence. The
House of Life"-never had been pub
lished. Rossetti, however. had shown
and read them to his friends including
his less romantic brother, William
Michael Rossetti. AS the years passed
his grief became less poignant and he
listened to their solicitations that the
coffin be exhumed and the verses pub
lished.
Came Here Is Years Ago.
This was done. The work itself be-
came a part of English literature and
immortalized Rossetti as one of the
great poets of his age. The later his
tory of the manuscripts themselves Is
obscure. They evidently passed to the
hands of some dealer in the disposal
Of Rossetti's effects after his death
They came to- the Library of Congress
about Is years ago in some material
obtained from Charles E. Freer, the
Detroit millionaire, who afterward do
mated the Freer Gallery here and his
collection of paintings. The yellowing
manuscripts have lain in the vaults
until now. when their actual identity
was realized.
Actually THE Blessed Damozel" itself
Is not one of the manuscripts. Rossetti
had written and published this more
than 10 years before his wife's death
in the magazine The Germ, which
was launched as the organ of the pre-
Raphealite brotherhood of painters
of which he was one of the founders
and OF which four issues we're printed
He placed these issues of The Germ
in the coffin, together with his manu-
script poems, but they already had had
a limited distribution.
Sister Believed Prototype.
The chief claim of The Germ to
immortality lies in the fact that one
of its issues contained The Blessed
Damozel." 1t is not at all certain that
the prototype of this figure actually
was Mrs Rossetti. There is a greater
likelihood that it was the poets sister
But tradition has inextricably identi-
fed his dead wife with the picture OF
the lately released spirit whose face was
like waters stilled at even''
The manuscripts found in the Library
of Congress, together with the copies OF
The Germ include about 80 OF the
House of Life" sonnets. Rossetti is
known to have added a few after the
manuscripts were exhumed, but these
fall in about the middle of the series
so it is highly probable that they are
from the grave collection.