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The Kissed Mouth:
Words, for an Unrealized Song Cycle
[complete text]

            
        “Bocca baciata non perda ventura, anzi rinnova come fa la luna.”
 

                          — Boccaccio, Decameron, II, 7

 

THE ARGUMENT

Dante Gabriel Rossetti is near death. In a delirium, from the advance of his last illness or from the effects of drink and opiates, he imagines himself to be still at home, at night and alone. He is visited in turn by the memories or essences of three women. These spirits also embody the past, the recent present, and the future or eternity. The first apparition takes the form of his wife, Elizabeth Siddal, now dead. The second is his lover, Jane Burden Morris, also the wife of his friend, now parted from him by circumstance and by her choice. The last is Dante’s Beatrice as Rossetti has imagined or dreamt her over the course of his life.

 

1.    Rossetti Alone 

    a.    A House Empty of Life
            [Rossetti]

No moon tonight
The wind flaps loose, and high, and then falls still
No clouds tonight
The wind flaps loose, and high, and yet … no stars.
No moon, no stars,
No candle’s flame or lamp.

No sound tonight
The river flows nearby, or so I thought.
It too is stilled,
And yet, still flows as might soft silent tears
from failing eyes.
No color, sound or sleep.

Or do I sleep?
Is this my house or is this house a dream?
No one comes near.
As dark as that dark wood my namesake knew,
where he was lost
Till he was shown a way.

To see again.
To sleep again.
No way for me this night. No way for me.


    b.    Elements
            
[Rossetti]

Water, water, earth and water,
Earth and air and earth and fire
And heaven’s blue
And bowers’ green
And golden Heaven’s bar:

These things I know,
These things I’ve seen in life or in a dream
And figured forth in painting and in rhyme
And time
And time
And Time’s resolved to tear them from me....

Through all I’ve known,
These women— Beauteous stunners, lost to me
Those stunners, but reflections, only shadows
Beauteous shadows,
Beauteous shadows,
Dreamt or kissed, belovèd shadows

One I have loved: and she I married:
Dead and buried, dead and buried

One I have loved, she wed to another:
A vision, a myst’ry, a wife and a mother
Living, she left me....

In beauty I have placed all my trust, all my troth
Those two were as portals, I painted them both
as the third, whom I’ve loved all my days as a dreamer:
Centuries gone, my namesake’s redeemer....

        One thing once learnt remains to me:
        The woodspurge has a cup of three
        And so these three I always see
            Now and nightly
            Now and nightly

 

2.    The Apparition of Elizabeth Siddal

R:
And now, the first
She comes, she comes
She who is lost to me
She who I—cast?—from me
        So some would say
        So she might say....
Buried once, Buried twice
Buried always but never gone.


    a.    The Figure and the Ground 
            [Lizzie and Rossetti]

L:
Slow hours, slow days, slow years
Each day more hours, each year more days
and I am parted from you long and longer

In water as Ophelia I have lain
In earth as your dead wife I have been laid
Water is cold and earth is colder

A queen in opal or in ruby dress
A nameless girl in freshest summer's green
These things I've been

My face looked out from all your canvases,
You fed upon my face by day and night,
And I with true kind eyes looked back on you

See me now as once I was,
As if hope still shone bright;
Not as I am, but as I filled your dream.

    b.    This Loving Hand
            [Rossetti and Lizzie]

R:
Not in my body was my life at all
But in this lady's lips and hands and eyes

L:
Look on yourself without me, and recall
The waste remembrance and forlorn surmise

R:
This loving hand, once warm and capable
Of earnest grasping — Now lies deep and cold
And from the icy silence of the tomb,
It haunts my days and chills my dreaming nights

How I could wish my own heart dry of blood
So in your veins red life might stream again,

L:
And thou be conscience­-calmed—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.

R:
Mid change and changeless night that holds its breath,
Lies all that golden hair undimm'd in death.

L:
I lay not alone, for your verses were there,
But the grave was reopened and they rose again.
I lie there without them, compelled to remain
A corpse in a coffin with golden hair.

    c.    Stillborn Love
           
[Lizzie and Rossetti]

L:
The hour which might have been yet might not be,
That hour that our two hearts conceived and bore
Yet whereof life was barren,— mute before
The house of Love,....
Mute before the house of Love

Earth and Air and Fire and Water
How explain our stillborn daughter?
Water, Fire and Air and Earth
How explain that death in birth?

And I soon followed, I soon followed
All that’s sacred, all that’s hallowed
Cried against it, cries against it
What was meant? What could prevent it?
Who’s to blame, what evil sent it?

R:
Love struck the living rock and water flowed
So many verses flowed from out that cleft
So many pictures too we two have made
But a child, the breathing image of that life
That living picture was not meant to be

One last, one final picture of you, love,
I made of what remained when you would not.
The role is one you played so often, love,
The Lady of the Poet: Beatrice!
Untouchable, unspeakably beloved
Of that supreme inimitable man....

L:
No more! No more. You cannot see me more!
You see, and dream, another, hardly me.
Be blessed. Be comforted. Begone.
Begone, this sorrow's shape, this walking woe.
Be calmed and dream your Beatrix. Recall
your Lizzie if you will. Farewell! Fare well…

 

3.    The Apparition of Jane Burden Morris

R:

And now, the second
She comes, she comes
Sweet Jane, who is flown from me
Spurned me, rejected me
        After so long
        After so much....
Returned to her hearth,
Returned to her home,
To her husband and her children,
While I die alone.

    a.    The Queen of Beauty/The Kissed Mouth
            [Rossetti and Jane]

R:
The Queen of Beauty!
        Absolute eyes
        And supple, motive hands
        Their gestures emulate the turning spheres

The Queen of Beauty!
        The pulse of hearts
        When breast to breast we lay
        The tongue the teeth the lips the cheek the throat

J:
A blue silk dress
        A roseleaf, reverie
La Belle Iseult you sought
        And it was me
Attending the Belovèd,
        Pandora, Proserpine
Astarte Syriaca
        Your heart was mine

In your painted visions
        I assumed my place
And even Dante’s lady
        Bore my face
Bound each to another
        Near neighbors to death
We fell still together
        And shared one breath

R:
A mouth that has been kissed lives on in freshness
        Preserves its beauty
        Grows ever new
A mouth that has been kissed is blooming always
        In dream or memory
        To be kissed again

J:
The mouth, when first it’s kissed, when first it rises
        The moon at twilight
        A lamp at dusk
The kissed mouth needs no words to give it meaning
        No words but motion
        To spin its tale

R:
The kissed mouth is the speaking mouth’s companion
        It fares forth boldly
        Where speech can not

J:
In time the speaking mouth subsides to silence
        
And now that silence
        Is only silence

    b.    Love So Solid Seeming
           [Rossetti and Jane]

R:        Love so solid seeming soon sublimes
J:         Vanishing transparent in to air
R:        Leaving only mem’ry and regret
J:         A pallid haze, a space, an empty chair
R:        Time sifts in like sad volcanic ash
J:         Silting round the absences like smoke
           
Where once there was affection now there’s diffidence
R:        Where once was a creator, there’s a joke

J [mocking]:
        Oh where is the passionate poet and painter,
        My person his canvas, my presence his muse?
        He traded his laurel for whisky and chloral
        And now his attentions I bluntly refuse.

R:
Peace, peace! The break is made, the man is broken.
I see and seem to hear you, but I know you come not near.

J:
I am not here: your way and mine are parted.
In such a dark as this
In such a wooded dream we meet ourselves
And gape in stark amaze, or weep for what was dear.

I’ll not return this way. Farewell! Fare well....

 

4.    The Apparition of Beatrice

    a.    A Superscription
           [Rossetti]

R:
Stay, stay!
All’s dimming now.
I hardly see the way before my feet, —
Out of sight, beyond light, at what goal may we meet?

Look in my face; my name is Might­have­been;
I am also call'd No­more, Too­late, Farewell;
Up to my ear I hold a dead­sea shell
Up to my eyes a glass where that is seen
Which had Life's form and Love's....
And Love’s....
And Love’s....

One yet, one last remains...
She comes, she comes
Beata! Beata Beatrix!
Through her the Florentine
Found the new life
And the new sweet style
The New Life —
The true life, the only life
Through you, by you lady may I hope?
So long I have served your vision.
Speak to me, that hope may be
The last part of me living....

    b.    The House of Life
            [Beatrice]

B:
Dome upon dome
upon Sphere upon sphere
upon Crystal, cerulean,
Stars’ fire empyrean

Fire within fire
above Earth over water and
Air born of light borne on
Light rising infinite

House upon house in a
Mansion of  mansions
All may be home to you,
Three you must know:

First is The House of Love
Second The House of Death
Through them, the way to the fair House of Life.

I stand before the door
I stand within the door
I stand and I am the door
Through me lies the way to the House of Life
That is the House of Love
where Life and Love and Death are one
Where all loves are one, in one house

Enter here.
Enter here!
All who love may enter here.

    c.    The Unkissed Mouth
           [Beatrice and Rossetti]

B:         The mouth that has been kissed is not the only mouth
                    Nor is its kiss
                    All that may be

R:        The unkissed mouth may speak, and speaking truly
                    Unpack its secrets
                    
Disclose the soul

            In time the speaking mouth subsides to silence

B:                Yet through that silence
                    Still it may speak

            The life of fleshly love lies now behind you
                    Cast off its remnants
                    
Now follow on

            Envision hope eternally returning

Both:           As life and love dissolve
                    As in a kiss

 

    d.    The New Life
           [Beatrice and Rossetti]

B:        At birth the essential spirit, cleansed and kissed by water,
            Shines forth pearlescent.
R:                                                   All too soon, despair
            
Despoils and blots its luster. Cruel human laughter

            Scorches, twists, distorts it. I could bear
            
The blindness and the ignorance, the joyless mirth,
            But craved sweet mortal Beauty as my air....

B:        That hour has gone, all days are done, and every breath
            You spend is one you will not miss as you expire,
            Rejoining all those lost ones under earth.

R:        Lady! Blessèd lady: what do you require?
B:        I conjure you: surrender and forgive.
            
Come now, essential spirit cleansed and kissed by fire

            And holy grace, immortal love’s restorative.
R:        As one whose glance steals back to a familiar shore
            and weeps for parting, knowing he must leave to live

            I follow you....

Both:                            To new shores shining from afar,
            Unbounded and perpetual, where all we love
            Surrounds us amid the eternal blazing stars.


R
[spoken]:
        And at this last of the book of my memory,
        beyond which is little that can be read,
        there is a rubric, saying:
        “Here begins the New Life.”

Fin.

 

~~~

The Kissed Mouth: The Argument and Index (access to individual sections)  

The Kissed Mouth: Notes and Sources   

© 2013 George M. Wallace; all rights reserved.

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