‘I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret’

This fragment is roughly drafted in ink in Nbk 16 with several lines cancelled. On the facing page, crosswise, is a prose jotting relating to DP that was almost certainly done between January and March 1821. Acknowledging A. H. Koszul, Shelley's Prose in the Bodleian Manuscripts (1910) 140n, E. B. Murray explains the position of these items amongst pages containing the ‘Speculations on Morals and Metaphysics’ (a prose draft of earlier, though, as noted by B.C. Barker-Benfield in BSM xxiii 49, less secure date) thus: ‘Shelley turned two pages when he continued the Speculations (after a clear break) and later used the pages he skipped for the fragment [i.e. I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret ] and the prose jotting.’ (BSM iv, Pt II, 361) In respect of dating, Murray notes: ‘While the fact that it may be 715written in the same ink as that used for the Defence-related jotting is not sufficient evidence for certain dating, early 1821 is nonetheless a fairly safe inference for an inclusive time of composition.’ (BSM iv, Pt II, 361–2) However, the context of these lines may be a more recent recollection of S.’s visit to Pisa with Mary, recorded in the latter's jnl for 12 September 1820, which took in the Campo Santo and the Leaning Tower (Mary Jnl i 332). Although no ‘metropolis’ in the Greek sense of ‘the mother city or parent state of a colony’ (OED) used to describe Naples in Ode to Naples l. 57, Pisa was of notably broad extent (see ‘wide’ in l. 2) and the chief town of its district (for contemporary accounts of Pisa, see headnote to Evening. Ponte a Mare, Pisa, no. 324). A September dating may be supported by S.’s recent, late August, use of this nbk for intermediate fair copies of Ode to Naples (no. 343) and WA (no. 341).