ABSTRACT
As Charles Robinson demonstrates (Robinson 263) this draft must predate those of PU Act II (spring 1819) in Nbk 11. It begins on the page following ‘Behold, sweet Sister mine’, to which it relates, and is probably of the same date: late September or early October 1818 (its inclusion by Mary S. among ‘Poems written in 1820’ is an error). At the top of f. 13 is a jotted reminder of the epigraph for Alastor: ‘the good die first. Between the original opening lines, which are cancelled – Two genii stood before me in a dream Seest thou not the shades of even [BSM xviii reads Wert for Seest] – S. has inserted the present title, evidently after completing the poem and in a different ink, together with headings ‘1st Spirit’ and ‘2nd Spirit’ to the first and second stanzas respectively, also in different ink. As these headings were hasty additions it may be assumed that similar headings were implied, though not added, for stanzas 3 and 4, and possibly also for 5 and 6; however, the last two stanzas seem to be detached reflections arising from the Spirits’ debate rather than a continuation of it, or of the Second Spirit’s argument, and most eds after 1846 rule them off from the first four. The two Spirits, or genii, are closely akin to the ‘two shapes’ of PU I 752, the opposite but hitherto inseparable twins Love and Pain (see headnote to the preceding poem, ‘Behold, sweet Sister mine’). On f. 2 of Nbk 11 are the draft lines: ‘Twin nurslings of the [BSM xviii reads this] all sustaining air / Whom one nest sheltered’, a version of PU I 752-4: Behold’st thou not two shapes from the east and west Come, as two doves to one belovèd nest, Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air
