ith several of his utterances, and sympathized with
others, apart from strict agreement.
By Patmore: "The Seasons." This choice little poem was volunteered to
"The Germ" in September, after the author had read our prospectus,
which impressed him favourably. He withheld his name, much to our
disappointment, having resolved to do so in all instances where
something of his might be published pending the issue of a new
volume.
By Christina Rossetti: "Dream Land." Though my sister was only just
nineteen when this remarkable lyric was printed, she had already made
some slight appearance in published type (not to speak of the
privately printed "Verses" of 1847), as two small poems of hers had
been inserted in "The Athenaeum" in October 1848. "Dream Land" was
written in April 1849, before "The Germ" was thought of; and it may
be as well to say that all my sister's contributions to this magazine
were produced without any reference to publication in that or in any
particular form.
By Dante G. Rossetti: "My Sister's Sleep." This purports to be No. 1
of "Songs of One Household." I do not much think that Dante Rossetti
ever wrote any other poem which would have been proper to such a
series. "My Sister's Sleep" was composed very soon after he emerged
from a merely juvenile stage of work. I believe that it dates before
"The Blessed Damozel," and therefore before May 1847. It is not
founded upon any actual event affecting the Rossetti family, nor any
family of our acquaintance. As I have said in my Memoir of my brother
(1895), the poem was shown, perhaps early in 1848, by Major Calder
Campbell to the editress of the "Belle Assemblee," who heartily
admired it, but, for one reason or another, did not publish it. This
composition is somewhat noticeable on more grounds than one; not
least as being in a metre which was not much in use until it became
famous in Tennyson's "In Memoriam," published in 1850, and of course
totally unknown to Rossetti when he wrote "My Sister's Sleep." In
later years my brother viewed this early work with some distaste, and
he only reluctantly reprinted it in his "Poems," 1870. He then wholly
omitted the four stanzas 7, 8, 12, 13, beginning: "Silence was
speaking," "I said, full knowledge," "She stood a moment," "Almost
unwittingly"; and he made some other verbal alterations.{2} It will
be observed that this poem was written long before the Praeraphaelite
movement began. None the less it shows in an eminen
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