To Night

S.’s exercise on a conventional lyric theme, in a highly unusual stanza, was published by Mary in 1824. She took her text directly from his holograph fair copy in Harvard Nbk 1, and there are no differences of substance between the two. S. drafted the lines in Nbk 12 on the front cover pastedown and on ff. 1^r–2^v, 3^v in proximity to material datable to summer–autumn 1819 (MYRS vi 81). This, together with the poem's affinities to the series of erotic lyrics that he wrote between mid-November and late December of the year inspired by his acquaintance with Sophia Stacey (see headnote to Thou art fair, and few are fairer [To Sophia] (no. 271)) would support a date of composition in that period. In 1839 (iv 110–11) Mary placed the poem among those written in 1821, a date inconsistent with both the position of the draft in Nbk 12 and of the fair copy in Harvard Nbk 1.