ABSTRACT
These lines are written vertically in ink between the last of the ‘Essay on Christianity’ and stanza 2 of no. 155, ‘To Constantia’ (‘Thy voice, slow rising’) in Nbk 5, and may have resulted from the initial impulse that was then realised in the poem. At any rate the lines were probably already on the page when S. drafted ‘To Constantia’, as he did not go back another page in order to write stanza 3 but instead skipped forward two pages and used f. 36r. The concept and some of the phrasing of the lines were incorporated sixteen months later into Asia’s song at the end of PU II (v 72-81), in an elaborate stanza-form. These lines are in terza rima, and are so spaced in MS.
