ABSTRACT
According to Claire Clairmont in later life, ‘Shelley at Bracknell fell in love with Mrs Turner. Madame de Boinville and Mrs Turner were indignant, and broke off his acquaintance; but Harriet Shelley continued to visit them, and remained at Bracknell, while Shelley took refuge in London. The stanzas dated April, 1814, are addressed to Madame de Boinville and Cornelia Turner’ (Dowden Life ii 549). Harriet S. in fact went to London with her sister Eliza on 14 April, and S. avoided his own ‘desolated hearth’ by staying with the Boinvilles. A crisis in their relationship must have alienated Mrs Boinville (the ‘friend’ of line 6) while Cornelia (the ‘lover’ of line 7 — though ‘lover’ bears no unequivocally physical implication) would not commit herself to intercede for him. Lines 1–2 suggest a moon in its first quarter, so the poem may well have been composed about 25 April. Mrs Boinville apparently relented so far as to come to nurse S. in London when he took poison early in July (Dowden Life ii 544–5).
