"Dame Eleanor's Return" by William Shakespeare Burton (1824-1916)

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Illustration for "Dame Eleanor's Return"

William Shakespeare Burton (1824-1916)

Engraver: Joseph Swain

1864

Wood engraving

6½ x 4¾ inches (16.5 12.0 cm)

Once a Week XI (13 August 1864), p. 210

See below for commentary.

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You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned it and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

This illustrates the ballad "Dame Eleanor's Return" by the Rev. Blomfield Jackson (1839-1907) that appeared in this issue of Once a Week (209-10), particularly the opening stanza,

Dame Eleanor waits by the tallest tree,
In the avenue down from the hall;
Dame Eleanor hears the surge of the sea,
She watches the red leaves fall.

A stealthy step on the moonlit turf,-
A clinging of lips and hands:
"My bark is biding beyond the surf
To bear us to warmer lands"

The ballad tells the story of a failed elopement involving a married woman and a dashing Spaniard. Dame Eleanor is rightly shown as apprehensive. Her vengeful husband arrives on the scene unexpectedly, and her lover slays him, but then flees alone. Dame Eleanor, white-haired and penitent, will eventually be buried next to her husband in the local Cornish church, her hand still clutching the dust of a red leaf.

Bibliography

Once a Week Vol. X1 (13 August 1864): 12-14. Internet Archive. Web. 18 June 2024.

"Jackson, Blomfield, Rev. (M)." Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry. Web. 18 June 2024. https://dvpp.uvic.ca/jack2.html

Created 18 June 2024