ABSTRACT
WBY's prose ‘Subject’ for this poem is entered in his Journal in 1909 only as from ‘September’, after an entry dated 27 Aug., and before one dated 8 Sep. This is the first trace of the poem, and while there is no evidence that it was put into verse before the middle of Mar. 1910, it is likely that draft material from before then has been lost. On 21 Sep., WBY wrote to A.H. Bullen about the progress of his intended new verse play, The Player Queen, adding that ‘I have also done a new lyric but I don't want to publish the lyric until I have a book’ although the editors of CL 5 speculate that this new lyric is the present poem, it could just as easily be ‘On A House Shaken By the Land Agitation’.
