ABSTRACT

The poem was drafted in Nbk 5, and written out by S. into Claire's nbk except for a final line, which he must have supplied when she copied the poem to send to the Oxford University and City Herald. This last line is the only important variant between Harvard Nbk 2 and 0, and Claire Clairmont, ironically, may not have been shown the only version known to posterity up to 1969. This is because it exists only in the draft, which Mary S. had been compelled to rely on for her reconstruction of the poem in 1824 under her own title 'To Constantia, Singing'. The original published text remained undiscovered until Judith Chernaik traced and reprinted it in 1969. It appeared over the signature PLEYEL, perhaps from Haydn's living pupil Ignaz Pleyel, who may plausibly have composed the music Claire had been singing, or from Henry Pleyel, the rationalist hero of Charles Brockden Brown's novel Wieland, or The Transformation.