['I Heard Under a Ragged Hollow Wood']

The poem was to be revised on removal from its fictional context for CWVP08 in Jul. 1907, and that revision is separately edited in the present volume. The only surviving MS, in the collection at Emory University, is a single sheet of paper with a draft in ink and numerous cancellations, which could well be WBY's earliest attempt at the new poem. In ‘The Twisting of the Rope’ the itinerant poet Red Hanrahan is welcomed into a party where amongst the local guests he meets a girl, Oona, with whom he talks intently all through the dancing that is taking place. The women leave, taking their treasures with them, ‘and as they went out one of them said ‘he has no wish for us’; and another said ‘he is weak, he is weak’; and another said ‘he is afraid;’ and the last said ‘his wits are gone from him’.