A HANDWRITTEN LETTER AND SONNET FROM DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI TO FREDERIC J SHIELDS

The letter reading as follows:

My dear Shields,
Thanks for you loving words on the sonnet, and thanks most of all for the chance of using it. I subjoin a revised copy. 

I write this line because I expect Mrs Gilchrist & her son abt 5 tomorrow (Saturday) & thought I shd tell you so. But I dare say you wont think this forbids work. Hoping to see you
Yours ever affec.
DGR

The Sonnet reading:

To Frederick (sic) Shields, on his sketch of Blake's work room and death room, 3 Fountain Court, Strand.
This is the place. Even here the dauntless soul,
The unflinching hand, wrought on; till in that nook,
As on that very bed, his life partook
New birth and passed. Yon river's distant shoal,
Beyond the steep wynd's teeming gully-hole,
Faced his work-table, whence his eyes would stare
Not unto any sight that met them there,
But to the unfettered irreversible goal.
This cupboard, Holy of Holies, held the cloud
Of his soul writ and limned, this other one,
His true wife's charge, full oft to their abode
Yielded for daily bread the martyr's stone,
Ere yet their food might be that bread alone,
The words now home - heard from the mouth of God
D.G. Rossetti, May 1880

Frederic James Shields (14 March 1833 – 26 February 1911) was a British artist, illustrator, and designer closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites through Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown.

Kerrison Preston Esq. (1884-1974) practised as a solicitor in Bournemouth, Hampshire (now Dorset) from 1909 to 1949. He was a noted connoisseur with a collection including Pre-Raphaelite works by Rossetti and Burne-Jones, which were saved for the nation by Duke’s in 2007 and now form part of the collection of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Kerrison was also a keen collector of the works of William Blake and in addition to writing books and articles about Blake, he was a Trustee of the William Blake Trust and a Sponsor of the Blake Bicentenary Celebrations.