ABSTRACT
This peculiar lyric is drafted in pencil, with a few corrections in ink, on pp. 18–20 of Nbk 17. Immediately below the draft of the first stanza on p. 19 is what appears to be the cancelled beginning of a second, ‘Swifter than Diana's hind/Fairer than’, which is repeated at the top of the next page, possibly placed there as a trial opening for a third stanza which S. never continued. On p. 19 a different attempt to begin a second stanza follows (‘As a youth with beating heart/Parted lips, and humid eyes’); while on the facing page 18 is another attempt, ‘Today—alas, if thou wert she’ immediately above the draft of the stanza as given here—this is much cancelled and adopts the figure of the desiring youth as well as many of the words of the second attempt on p. 19. Mary transcribed the first stanza only into Mary Copybk 1 (p. 93) and published it in 1824 under the title To-morrow. The draft of the second stanza did not receive S.’s final attention, several lines being left undetermined. How, or even whether, he might have completed the poem remains uncertain. Similarities of matter and style led Forman 1876–7, without the authority of any MS, to suppose that If I walk in Autumn even (head-note to no. 246) should form the second stanza of To-Morrow as published in 1824 and 1839. His supposition is rendered inadmissible by the drafts in Nbk 17 of the two stanzas presented here.
