Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light had we: for that we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light: so late! and dark and chill the night! O, let us in, that we may find the light! Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now. Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? O, let us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet! No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now." The pen and ink drawing of The Wise and Foolish Virgins of 1859-60 is a far more developed emotionally, the excluded virgins show far more distress and those inside are depicted in delight with a severe Christ peering from the door. Additional animation is given by the water pouring into the mill race. A peacock is included as a symbol of vanity.
The poem is taken from Tennyson's Guinevere, one of the first four Idylls of the Kings, published in 1859. It is the song sung to the unhappy Queen by a novice after she has fled from the court and taken refuge in the nunnery at Almesbury (lines 166-177). Burne-Jones's illustration is a design of The Wise and Foolish Virgins, a subject he also treated in several contemporary drawings.... The finished composition, though much more elaborate than the drawing in the album, is similar in general conception.
