ABSTRACT
The difficult draft interrupts L&C II in Nbk 2 ff. 50–1, and is therefore datable to April 1817 (see headnote to L&C). The lines are mainly in pencil with some corrections in ink, and are mostly cancelled, although possibly S. intended to revise them (cp. the heavy cancellations in the ‘Mont Blanc’ draft). The lines begin in what seems a clear pattern of indentation, and the first line may represent an undecided form ‘My … Maiden’; but no firm conclusions about the intended stanza form are possible because of the confusion and illegibility 563of S.’s draft and corrections (the pencil has grown very faint). The poem (if not dramatic) is presumably biographical in its reference, about either Fanny Godwin or Harriet S.; the theme appears actually to be death. No anniversaries were near at the time of composition, except Claire’s birthday; the poem is conceivably a dramatic conception, as from Byron to Claire (S. wrote to Byron on 23 April; L i 539–40).
