ABSTRACT
These lines are written in pencil at the top of f. 47v rev. of Nbk 10 above a fair copy in ink of the first stanza of An Exhortation (no. 283) which is written cross-ways in the space left blank on the page. As An Exhortation dates from late April 1820, the present lines must predate it and are likely to have been composed in the period from late 1819 to Spring 1820 when S. also composed a number of poems and fragments that incorporate atmospheric details. The gentleness of rain is in the Wind (no. 229), Ode to the West Wind (no. 259), The fitful alternations of the rain (no. 230), Now the day has died away (no. 268)—all of them apparently based upon observation of actual climatic conditions—seem to date from late 1819. The description in the present fragment would be consistent with weather conditions in Florence in November and December 1819, which were unusually wet and cold (Mary L i 112–19), so it is tentatively assigned to that two-month period though with the qualification stated above. The facing page, f. 48r rev., carries a draft of Goodnight (no. 277) which can be assigned with reasonable confidence to December 1819, a date consistent with the date proposed for this fragment.
