ot think any other picture,
except the _Madonna di San Sisto_ at Dresden, ever stirred within me.
The memory of such a picture is like the memory of sublime and perfect
music; it makes any one who _fully_ feels it--_silent_. Fifty years
hence it will be named among the half-dozen supreme pictures of the
world.

Rossetti had buried the only complete copy of his poems with his wife at
Highgate, and for a time he had been able to put by the thought of them;
but as one by one his friends, Mr. Morris, Mr. Swinburne, and others,
attained to distinction as poets, he began to hanker after poetic
reputation, and to reflect with pain and regret upon the hidden
fruits of his best effort. Rossetti--in all love of his memory be
it spoken--was after all a frail mortal; of unstable character: of
variable purpose: a creature of impulse and whim, and with a plentiful
lack of the backbone of volition. With less affection he would not have
buried his book; with more strength of will he had not done so; or,
having done so, he had never wished to undo what he had done; or having
undone it, he would never have tormented himself with the memory of it
as of a deed of sacrilege. But Rossetti had both affection enough to
do it and weakness enough to have it undone. After an infinity of
self-communions he determined to have the grave opened, and the book
extracted. Endless were the preparations necessary before such a work
could be begun. Mr. Home Secretary Bruce had to be consulted. At length
preliminaries were complete, and one night, seven and a half years after
the burial, a fire was built by the side of the grave, and then the
coffin was raised and opened. The body is described as perfect upon
coming to light.

Whilst this painful work was being done the unhappy author of it was
sitting alone and anxious, and full of self-reproaches at the house of
the friend who had charge of it. He was relieved and thankful when told
that all was over. The volume was not much the worse for the years it
had lain in the grave. Deficiencies were filled in from memory, the
manuscript was put in the press, and in 1870 the reclaimed work was
issued under the simple title of _Poems_.

The success of the book was almost without precedent; seven editions
were called for in rapid succession. It was reviewed with enthusiasm in
many quarters. Yet that was a period in which fresh poetry and new poets
arose, even as they now arise, with all the abundance and timeline