ABSTRACT
It is not possible to assign a firm date to the composition of this poem, but it is very likely to have been written after mid-Mar. 1907. WBY was at work on his play Deirdre from the summer of 1904, though the play itself was not produced until 1906, and it was subject to revision after its early performances, being published in 1907. This lyric, however, seems to have come late in the overall composition process, and may not have formed part of the first production on 24 Nov. 1906. Probably the closest textual witnesses to that performance are the TSS produced at Coole in the summer of 1906 (Berg Collection, NYPL), and these give no details of a song at the appropriate point, even though in the fullest TS some kind of sung lyric is alluded to.
