ABSTRACT
This rough and much-cancelled draft is written in pencil lengthways from bottom to top of page 2 in Nbk 2 (which contains drafts for L&C Cantos I and II) beneath pencil drafts for ‘Fair clouds arrayed in sunlight lose the glory’ (no. 142) lines 60-3 and L&C lines 267-70. It therefore probably dates from late March/early April 1817 when S. was beginning composition of L&C. All three drafts are attempts at the final four lines of a Spenserian stanza. Affinities of thought and language establish a connection between this draft and stanzas 3 and 5 of no. 142, which occupies pages 4-8 of the same nbk, and for which it may at first have been intended. Cp. also Alastor lines 42-9. Facsimile and transcription in BSM xiii 8-9.
