ABSTRACT
Published in 1824 without date; included in 1839 among the Poems Written in 1820. No fair copy has been traced, and there is no transcription in either Mary Copybk 1 or Mary Copybk 2. S.’s untitled draft in Nbk 11 115–16, a mixture of roughly pencilled lines and some fair copy in ink, is both longer and less uniformly achieved than the two stanzas printed by Mary in 1824 and which are given below. Although the draft is untidy, those two stanzas are clearly worked out in the form in which they appear in 1824, so the simplest hypothesis would be that Mary extracted them directly from Nbk 11. It is always possible that S. himself prepared a fair copy which supplied her text, but there is no necessity to suppose its existence. The order in which S. composed the three stanzas that comprise the draft on the facing pages 115–16 is not perfectly clear, but as Chernaik 278–80 suggests, he probably first set down on the right-hand page 116 the following stanza with its several cancelled attempts at a third line: I fear thy [singing] sweet voice child of Beauty It is too sweet for me [Thy voice dissolves the chain of] Duty [binds more tight] [But yet seem] [Heavy & tight for] Whilst thou remainest free
