ABSTRACT
Addressed to Byron probably in autumn 1818 after renewing contact with him at Venice on 24 August and perhaps after access to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto IV which S. had read by 8 October. S. had used similar phrasing in his praise of Godwin's Caleb Williams and Mandeville on 7 December 1817: power is in Falkland not as in Mandeville Tumult hurried onward by the tempest, but Tranquillity standing unshaken amid its fiercest rage! But Caleb Williams never shakes the deepest soul like Mandeville. The lines are difficult to date precisely from their position in Nbk 11; they immediately follow 'O Mary dear' of the late summer, yet are apparently written over first draft of lines. O mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age Shakes like a reed in the unheeding storm, why dost thou rule not thine own sacred rage and clothe thy powers in some eternal form from thine eternal spirit, which might wage.
