ABSTRACT
This fragment of seven words runs from bottom to top along the outside edge of p. 18 in Nbk 14 below the draft for Pantherlike Spirit! beautiful and swift (no. 307), the final line of which it crosses. It is written in different ink and with a different pen-cut than that draft, however, and its first-person singular sets it apart from the direct address to the ‘Pantherlike Spirit’ in the first line of the earlier draft. BSM v 369 notes the similarity between the present line and a cancelled line in another draft fragment on p. 5 of the same nbk, Is there more on earth than we (no. 309): ‘I sung of One who seemed to be’ (see n. to ll. 1–2). It is possible that S. began to develop that fragment further, or began another poem with a variant on the cancelled line from it as starting-point, in unused space on this page before breaking off. As Pantherlike Spirit was probably composed in Spring 1820 and Is there more on earth in the latter half of April 1820, the present line may be dated to late April of that year as well.
