ABSTRACT

Written in pencil on p. 163 of Nbk 11, this fragment might be rejected lines for The Question——(no. 288), the draft of which, also in pencil, begins on the facing page 164. The three lines could represent an abandoned opening to the dream sequence of the longer poem on the facing page; at least they share the motifs of murmuring, dream, and stream with it as well as conforming to the rhyme-scheme of the ottava rima stanza of The Question——. They may therefore be dated to the first quarter of 1820 when The Question—— was probably composed.