RM03 Copied poems: H.W. Longfellow, ‘Afternoon in February’ and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ‘Three kings’ daughters fair’. Probably between December 1874 and March 1876.

metadata

No. RM03 (Brieven 1990 028, Complete Letters )
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: London, probably between December 1874 and March 1876

Source status

Original manuscript

Location

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, inv. no. b21 b V/1962

Date

The dating of this sheet is not at all firm. It is quite possible that Vincent gave it to Theo at Christmas 1874, when they were both visiting their parents (FR b2312), since ‘Kerstmis 74’ (Christmas ’74) is written at the bottom in another hand. Moreover, on 23 March 1876 Vincent sent Theo a copy of The poetical works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (letter 72); if indeed he sent this sheet to Theo, he must have done so before sending the book. We have therefore dated it to between December 1874 and March 1876. Incidentally, Van Gogh copied the first poem, ‘Afternoon in February’, into the second poetry album he made for Theo (end 1874 - early 1875), as well as into Annie Slade-Jones’s guestbook (some time between July and November 1876). See Pabst 1988, pp. 30, 63, 69. In De brieven 1990 this sheet was thought to have been enclosed in letter 28 of 10 August 1874, but we see no reason to support such a dating.

original text

1r:1

Afternoon in February

The day is ending

The night descending

The marsh is frozen

The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes

The red sun flashes

On village windows

That glimmer red.

And through the meadows

Like fearful shadows

Slowly passes

a funeral train.

Longfellow1

1v:2

Three kingsdaughters fair

Fly away my heart away

Sweet appleblossoms bloom

So sweet so sweet.

Ah says the eldest one

Fly away my heart away.

The days began so sweet

So sweet.

Ah says the second one

Fly away my heart away

Far off I hear the drum

So sweet.

Ah says the youngest one

Fly away my heart away

’t Is my true love my own

So sweet.2

translation

1r:1

Afternoon in February

The day is ending

The night descending

The marsh is frozen

The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes

The red sun flashes

On village windows

That glimmer red.

And through the meadows

Like fearful shadows

Slowly passes

a funeral train.

Longfellow1

1v:2

Three kingsdaughters fair

Fly away my heart away

Sweet appleblossoms bloom

So sweet so sweet.

Ah says the eldest one

Fly away my heart away.

The days began so sweet

So sweet.

Ah says the second one

Fly away my heart away

Far off I hear the drum

So sweet.

Ah says the youngest one

Fly away my heart away

’t Is my true love my own

So sweet.2

notes

1. ‘Afternoon in February’ taken from Longfellow’s volume The belfry of Bruges and other poems. See Longfellow 1886-1891, vol. 1, pp. 223-224. Van Gogh copied five of the six stanzas of the poem in the margin of the lithograph Going to church for the last time (The funeral in the cornfield) by J.J. van der Maaten, a print which he gave in 1877 or 1878 to his teacher M.B. Mendes da Costa. See letter 128, n. 38.

2. A rather free version after ‘My father’s close (Old French)’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; the complete text reads:

Inside my father’s close,

(Fly away O my heart away!)

Sweet apple-blossom blows

So sweet.

Three kings’ daughters fair,

(Fly away O my heart away!)

They lie below it there

So sweet.

‘Ah!’ says the eldest one,

(Fly away O my heart away!)

‘I think the day’s begun

So sweet.’

‘Ah!’ says the second one,

(Fly away O my heart away!)

‘Far off I hear the drum

So sweet.’

‘Ah!’ says the youngest one,

(Fly away O my heart away!)

‘It’s my true love, my own,

So sweet.’

‘Oh! if he fight and win,’

(Fly away O my heart away!)

‘I keep my love for him,

So sweet:

Oh! let him lose or win,

He hath it still complete.’

See Poems. London 1870, pp. 184-185.