ABSTRACT
The textual history of this lyric variation on the traditional theme of love decayed is involved and complicated. S. transcribed the fair copy, the text of which is given below, on Mary's letter of 7 March 1820 sent from Pisa to Sophia Stacey in Rome, evidently without Mary seeing it. (For S.’s relations with Sophia Stacey, see the headnotes to Thou art fair, and few are fairer (no. 271), Goodnight (no. 277) and Time Long Past (no. 275).) A note on the letter introduces the poem thus:
I promised you what I cannot perform; a song on singing:—there are only two subjects remaining. I have a few old stanzas on one which though simple & rude, look as if they were dictated by the heart.—And so—if you tell no one whose they are you are welcome to them.
