Before The Defence of Guenevere, with a checklist of Poems and Prose 

Edited by Florence S. Boos

INTRODUCTORY MATERIALS

Preface: William Morris's Earliest Poems: Preparation for The Defence of Guenevere

Early Poems and Poetic and Prose Fragments including those not published in his lifetime

EARLY DRAMATIC POEM

Scenes from the Fall of Troy, edited by A. P. M. Wright, c. 1859

MANUSCRIPTS

Beinecke Library MS. 1595

• "The Sleeve of Gold"
• "Fair Catherine"
• "About the middle of the month of June" 
• "That summer morning out in the green fields" [discarded opening of Defence of Guenevere], 
• "The Maying of Queen Guenevere" 
• "I am not now afraid of God" 

British Library Additional Manuscript 45,298A 

• "Untitled" ("Torches and waxlights quickened in the Hall")
• "Untitled" ("Begun October 15th, 1875")
• "She and He" (The blossom's white upon the thorn/The lily's on the lea)
• "State Aided Emigration in 1889" (Lo tim on the rollers all ready for sea)
• "As this thin thread on thy dear neck shall lie,"
• "The doomed ship drives on helpless through the sea,"
• "Near but Far Away" (She wavered, stopped, and turned; me thought her eyes,)
• "May Grown-A Cold" (O certainly, no month this but May!)
• "Lonely Love and Loveless Death" (O have I been harkening/To some dread newcomer? 
• "Everlasting Spring" (O my love my darling,/what is this men say)
• "Hope Dieth: Love Liveth" (Strong are thing arms, O love, and strong/thy heart to live, and love, and long;)
• Song: "Twas one little word that wrought it"
• Song: "Our Hands Have Met"
• "Silence and Pity" (Thy lips my lips have touches no more may speak / The words that through my sorrow used to break)
• "Rhyme Slayeth Shame" (If as I come under her she might hear/ If words might reach her when I go away)
• "Why Doest Though Struggle" (Why dost thou struggle, strive for victory)
• "Fair Weather and Foul" (Speak not, move not, but listen, the sky is full of gold,)
• "O far away to seek, close-hid for heart to find,"
• "O land sore torn and riven"
• "We loosened from the quays on a Friday,"
• "Thus have I told many ways of the dealings of prudence with men"
• "Peevish and weak and fretful do I pray"
• "Dramatic fragment containing King, Oliver, Sir Walter, and Yoland (Well put thy case and more than one of us)"
• "Thou hast it then the pouch,"
• "Sad-eyed and soft and grey thou art, O morn!"
• "So I rose and felt my feet on the daisied grass in a while,"
• "Alone and unhappy by the fire I sat,"
• "Deep Sea, Might Wonder" (from "Earth the Healer, Earth the Keeper," copyist version 1) 
• "The Man Who Never Laughed Again" (rough pencil draft)
• Unidentified fragment of draft ("Moreover in that time and place...")

For transcriptions of these poems, click here.

British Library Additional Manuscript 45,298B

• "The Story of Orpheus and Eurydice" (copyist version)
• "Autograph Poems"
• "Earth the Healer, Earth the Keeper" ("So swift the hours are moving / Unto the time unproved")
• "The Mother Under the Mould," copyist version, ("Svend Dyring rode on the island-way / Yeah have not I myself been young")
• "State-Aided Emigration in 1889," copyist version, ("Lo trim on the rollers all ready for sea")
• "The Doomed Ship," copyist version, ("The doomed ship drives on helpless through the sea,)
• "Near But Far Away," copyist version, ("She wavered, stopped, and turned; methought her eyes,")
• "Everlasting Spring," copyist version, ("O my love my darling, / what is this men say")
• Song: "Twas one little word that wrought it," copyist version
• "As this thin thread on thy dear neck shall lie"
• "Silence and Pity," copyist version, ("Thy lips my lips have touched no more may speak / The words that through my sorrow used to break;")
• "Rhyme Slayeth Shame," copyist version, ("If as I come under her she might hear, / If words might reach her when I go away")
• "Why Dost Though Struggle," copyist version, ("Why dost thou struggle, strive for victory)
• "Fair Weather and Foul" ("Speak not, move not, but listen, the sky is full of gold,")
• "O Far Away to Seek" ("O far away to seek, close-hid for heart to find,")
• "Peevish and weak and fretful do I pray," copyist version")
• "Dear God praise thee much more many a thing," copyist version
• "Deep Sea, mighty wonder," copyist version 2, (from "Earth the Healer, Earth the Keeper")
• "Sad-eyed and soft and grey thou art, O morn!" copyist version
• "Alone and unhappy by the fire I sat," copyist version
• "They have no song, the sedge is dry," both autograph manuscript copyist versions
• "Three Chances and One Answer," copyist version, (O love, if all the pleasures of the earth)
• Song from Orpheus: "While agone my words had wings," copyist version
• Song from Orpheus: "O ye who sit alone and bend above the earth," copyist version
• Song from Orpheus: "Once a white house there was," copyist version
• Song from Orpheus: "O if ye laugh, then am I grown," copyist version
• Song from Orpheus: "O my love how could it be," 
• Song from Orpheus: "O hollow image of the very death," copyist version
• Song from Orpheus: "O love, love, love, folk told me thou wert dead," copyist version
• Song from Orpheus: "O hollow image of the very death," copyist version
• "The Man who Never Laughed Again," copyist version

For transcriptions of these poems, click here.

British Library Additional Manuscript 74,255

• "Autograph Poems, 1855-1858"
• "The Romance of the Three Wooers"

Fitzwilliam Library, Cambridge, Manuscript 2, Autograph Manuscript of fragments of 5 poems:

• "Why do they make these lists in the Great Square"
• "The Man Born to Be King"
• Prose Romance, "The Green Summer"
• "The Lady of the Wasted Land"
• "The Lady of Havering"

Fitzwilliam Library, Cambridge, Manuscript 3, Autograph Manuscript of fragments of 7 poems, 1 prose fragment:

• "A time there was in days long past away"
• "We have done all that men could do"
• "Once my Fell Foe Worsted Me"
• "Listen good folk to my rhyme"
• Beginning of "Lady of the Wasted Land"
• "Saint George"
• "Lady of the Wasted Land," prose fragment
• "The Cruel Stepmother," ballad
• "Lord Malstrom," ballad

Fitzwilliam Library, Cambridge, Fitz. 3 (14/1917), Autograph Manuscript:

• "The Willow and the Red Cliff" (typescript)
• "Funeral of the Duke of Wellington"
• "Fair Catherine made as if she sowed" (Sleeve of Gold)
• "the good Sir Richard slept right fast" [continued images from "Fair Catherine"]
• A discarded lyric for Bellerophon in Lycia
• Notes for the illustrations of Sigurd the Volsung

Fitzwilliam Library, Cambridge, Manuscript of Phillis M. Ellis, Manuscript of 'Drawing near the light.'

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

Follow this link for additional information on relevant articles, letters by Morris, articles, and The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine. 

Poems from the Prose Romances