ABSTRACT
No MS in S.’s hand is known to survive of this hymn which is sung by the character Proserpine in the first act of Mary's Proserpine, A Drama in two Acts. Mary's holograph MS of the drama in Mary Nbk (Bodleian MS. Shelley adds. d. 2) carries a marginal notation attributing the Song to S. in a hand that may be hers. There is no reason to doubt the attribution. The other lyric that S. contributed to the drama, as well as the two lyrics he wrote for Mary's drama Midas, are similarly assigned to him in Mary Nbk, and holograph drafts have survived for each of these three. See BSM x 34–5, 46–7, 96–9 and headnotes to Arethusa arose (no. 311) and Song of Apollo (no. 317); also Medwin (1913) 252. Mary did not publish the Song of Proserpine in 1824 but included it in 1839 (iii 270) under that title and among the Poems Written in 1820; no title was necessary in the drama. Mary Jnl i 315–16 indicates that she finished at least a draft of Proserpine on 3 May 1820 and that she was reading Ovid, whose Metamorphoses v 385–571 and Fasti iv 420–620 are the principal sources for the myth, on 26 April. So a date of composition for S.’s Song in the late April–3 May range would seem likely, though it could have been written shortly before or after that span.
