ABSTRACT
These five and a half lines are written in ink on p. 18 of Nbk 14. At the head of the page there is a cancelled ‘To’, apparently part of a title, as though S. origin- ally intended to address the lines to an individual; both the rhyme-scheme and the pattern of indentation suggest that he would have developed the address as a Spenserian stanza in the space left blank below line 6. The similarity between ll. 1–2 of the present fragment and Adonais 280–1 led V&P (42) to place the present lines among drafts originally written for the elegy, but their place in Nbk 14 supports instead a date of composition in spring 1820, when Keats had still nearly a year to live. Liberty (no. 300) on pp. 14–15 of Nbk 14, for example, was probably composed in mid- to late March, God save the Queen! [A New National Anthem] (no. 313) on pp. 19–22 in late April/early May, and Song of Apollo 330(no. 317) and Song of Pan (no. 318) in the same period. The conclusion in Rogers (260) that S. adapted the first two lines of this fragment, which he had previously drafted for another purpose, as part of his self-portrait in Adonais 271–306 would therefore appear to be correct. If S. did indeed compose Pantherlike Spirit in early spring 1820, which seems very probable, he soon after borrowed its principal image in a passage of LMG (no. 325) which was written between c. 15 June and 2 July. The lines concerned describe the appearance of the natural scene off the west coast of Britain on the morning in 1588 after the wind and waves had destroyed the Spanish Armada: Where to the sky the rude sea rarely smiles Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn When the exulting elements in scorn Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, As Panthers sleep. (38–43)
