ABSTRACT

What Forman (Huntington Nbks i 171) styles the ‘eventful history’ of this intriguing fragment begins with the rough and untidy draft in ink, revised in both darker ink and pencil, on ff 14r rev–15r rev of Nbk 12. Mary transcribed the first 18 lines of the draft into Mary Copybk 2. The first 13 of these only she published in 1839 (iv 183–4), without title or date, as no. X in the Fragments section while giving four of the remaining five lines as consecutive to line 7 of the following Fragment XI When soft winds and sunny skies (no. 202, Misery—A Fragment, Appendix C). This arrangement was clearly an error, as the removal of the four lines (14, 16–18 of the present text) from When soft winds in 1840 testifies. Forman included them as a separate fragment entitled simply Couplets in 1876–7 (iv 121), while Rossetti 1878, surmising correctly that they should follow on from the thirteen-line text in 1839, attached them to it. Later eds have maintained the division in Forman 1876–7.