ABSTRACT
Mary S. printed parts of this poem, without title, in her notes to S.’s poems of 1819 in 1839 and 1840, explaining how
At one time, while the question was still pending, the Chancellor had said some words that seemed to intimate that Shelley should not be permitted the care of any of his children, and for a moment he feared that our infant son would be torn from us. He did not hesitate to resolve, if such were menaced, to abandon country, fortune, everything, and to escape with his child; and I found some unfinished stanzas addressed to this son … written under the idea that we might suddenly be forced to cross the sea, so to preserve him.
(1839 iii 209)