England in Italy

First publ. B & P vii (DR & L), 6 Nov. 1845; repr. 1849 with changed title, 1863 (when it was placed in Romances: see Appendix A, p. 464), 1865², 1868, 1872 (with a change in line-length—see below), 1888. Our text is 1845. EBB. saw an unfinished draft in the summer of 1845, when the subtitle was ‘Autumn at Sorrento’; all her comments recorded in the notes derive from Wellesley MS, unless otherwise stated. The poem is written in the same five-stress metre, divided into long and short lines, as the unfinished Saul (see p. 286). In the completed Saul (1855), B. amalgamated the long and short lines into single long lines, and in 1872 (and its corrected reissue, 1884) he did the same with England, adjusting the punctuation and capitalization accordingly. Cp. the similar experiment with a long line in Cristina (see headnote, I 774). The first six lines read: Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one, sit here by my side, On my knees put up both little feet! I was sure, if I tried, I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco. Now, open your eyes, Let me keep you amused, till he vanish in black from the skies, With telling my memories over, as you tell your beads; All the Plain saw me gather, I garland—the flowers or the weeds.