Lizzie Siddall 1829-1862

She first read Tennyson's poems printed on paper Wrapped around a slab of country butter Oh, she was pale and haunted, like a wraith As if from birth she was marked out by Death Her eyes were grey, her hair was shining copper Modelled for Millais in a bath of water In ice cold winter, posing as Ophelia Her first near brush with death, bitter pneumonia She was the muse and darling of Rosetti Within her eyes he saw celestial vistas Oh, she was pale and haunted, like a wraith As if from birth she was marked out by Death John Ruskin was the patron for her art Her verses were set out like ancient ballads Her drawings, mediaeval in their style Anorexia, neuralgia, sore afflications Laudanum mushroomed into an addiction Too frail to walk five minutes to her wedding Carried to church, her future, all downhill She lost a baby, melancholy followed Pregnant again, she overdosed on laudanum Rossetti found her silent, motionless Her death by suicide was covered up. Oh, she was pale and haunted, like a wraith As if from birth she was marked out by Death He placed a booklet of his precious poems Beside her in that lair beneath the ground. Seven years passed, her body was disturbed, Her coffin raised to resurrect his poems Lazarus-like macabre, from the tomb And then, he wrote a tribute to her life: ‘What of her glass without her? The blank grey There where the pool is blind of the moon's face. Her dress without her? The tossed empty space Of cloud-rack whence the moon has passed away. Her paths without her? Day's appointed sway Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place Without her? Tears, ah me! For love's good grace, And cold forgetfulness of night or day.'