The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Selection from the Poems of William Morris, by William Morris, Edited by Francis Hueffer

Title: A Selection from the Poems of William Morris

Author: William Morris

Editor: Francis Hueffer

Release Date: February 9, 2011 [eBook #35227]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF WILLIAM MORRIS***

E-text prepared by David T. Jones, Ross Cooling,
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from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive/American Libraries
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Franz Hueffer who came into the Rossetti circle in the manner indicated in the following letter (of which the greater part is in the writing of the late Lucy Rossetti - daughter of Ford Madox Brown) was a broad-headed, plodding, able German who wrote and spoke English perfectly enough before his naturalization. He was somewhat heavy in his enthusiasms; and Gabriel Rossetti laughed at him a good deal. On one occasion D.G.R. let off the following "nursery rhyme":—

There's a fluffy-haired German called Huffer
A loud and pragmatical duffer:
To stand on a tower
And shout "Schopenhauer"
Is reckoned his mission by Huffer.

There was no malice in these rhymes of Rossetti's; but even his dear friend Morris ("Topsy" as his intimates called him on account of his shock of black hair) was not exempt from personal sallies of the kind,—as this, when M. got alarmed about his increasing bulk:—

There was a young person called Topsy
Who fancied he suffered from dropsy;
He shook like a jelly,
Till the Doctor cried "Belly!"—
Which angered; but comforted Topsy.

Poor dear Morris! he had cause enough for alarm. Diabetes was only one among the agencies by which his stalwart frame was disintegrated at the age of 62.

H.B.F.

7 November 1897.

May 27th/89

5 ENDSLEIGH GARDENS.

N.W.

Dear Forman,

Please excuse a very laconic presentment of the facts. Francis Hueffer, Musical Critic of the "Times", author of the libretto of "Columba" of a volume on the "Troubadours" of "Half a century of Music in England" etc etc, died last Jan 7 aged 43 leaving a widow & three children, & little indeed.

EACH VOLUME SOLD SEPARATELY.

COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

VOL. 2378.
POEMS BY WILLIAM MORRIS
IN ONE VOLUME.

LEIPZIG: BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ

PARIS: C. REINWALD, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES.

PARIS: THE GALIGNANI LIBRARY, 224, RUE DE RIVOLI, AND AT NICE, 15, QUAI MASSENA.

This Collection is published with copyright for Continental circulation, but all purchasers are earnestly requested not to introduce the volumes into England or into any British Colony.

COLLECTION

OF

BRITISH AUTHORS

TAUCHNITZ EDITION.

VOL. 2378.

POEMS BY WILLIAM MORRIS.

IN ONE VOLUME.

A SELECTION

FROM

THE POEMS

OF

WILLIAM MORRIS.

EDITED

WITH A MEMOIR

BY FRANCIS HUEFFER.

COPYRIGHT EDITION.

LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1886.

The Right of Translation is reserved.

MEMOIR

OF

WILLIAM MORRIS.

William Morris, poet, decorative designer and socialist, was born in 1834 at Clay Street, Walthamstow, now almost a suburb of London, at that time a country village in Essex. He went to school at Marlborough College and thence to Exeter College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1857. During his stay in the University the subsequent mode of his life was prepared and foreshadowed in two important directions. Like most poets Morris was not what is called very assiduous "at his book"; the routine of college training was no more an attraction to him than the ordinary amusements and dissipations of undergraduate existence. But he was studious all the same, reading the classics in his own somewhat spasmodic way and exploring with even greater zeal the mysteries of mediæval lore. His fellow-worker in these studies and his most intimate friend was and is at the present day Mr. Burne Jones, the famous painter, at that time a student of divinity. Artistic and literary pursuits thus went hand in hand, and received additional zest when the two young men became acquainted with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Holman Hunt and other painters of the Pre-Raphaelite school who came to Oxford to execute the frescoes still dimly visible on the ceiling of the Union Debating Hall. Of the aims and achievements of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and of the revival of mediæval feeling in art and literature originally advocated by its members ample account has been given in the memoir of Rossetti prefixed to his poems in the Tauchnitz edition. Its influence on Morris's early work, both in matter and form, will strike every observant reader of the opening ballads of the present collection. Later on the poet worked out for himself a distinct and individual phase of the mediæval movement, as will be mentioned by and by. At one time little was wanting to make Morris follow his friend Burne Jones's example and leave the pen for the brush. There is indeed still extant from his hand an unfinished picture evincing a remarkable sense of colour. He also for a short time became a pupil of the late Mr. G. E. Street, the architect, to whose genius London owes its finest modern Gothic building—the Law Courts in the Strand. On second thoughts, however, Morris came to the conclusion that poetry was his true field of action. His first literary venture was a monthly periodical started under his auspices in 1856 and called The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine. It contained, amongst other contributions from Morris's pen, a prose tale of a highly romantic character, and was, as regards artistic tendencies, essentially a sequel of The Germ, the organ of the