ABSTRACT
Composed between 29 April 1817, when ‘the piano arrives’ at Albion House (Mary Jnl i 168), and 19 January 1818, when Claire Clairmont recorded ‘Copy part of Verses to Constantia’ (Claire Jnl 79), most likely in December or early January (see Longman ii 328–9, 333–4). The poem was drafted in Nbk 5, and written out by S. into Claire’s nbk (Harvard Nbk 2) except for a final line, which he must have supplied when she copied the poem to send to the Oxford University and City Herald (‘O’). This last line is the only important variant between Harvard Nbk 2 and O, and Claire Clairmont, ironically, may not have been shown the only version known to posterity up to 1969. This is because it exists only in the draft, which Mary S. had been compelled to rely on for her reconstruction of the poem in 1824 under her own title ‘To Constantia, Singing’. Edward Silsbee, who came to own Harvard Nbk 2, noted below this poem — no doubt from Claire herself — ‘Written at Marlowe 1817 wd not let Mary see it sent it to Oxford Gazette or some Oxford or county paper without his name’. See MYR v Introduction xviii for discussion of the possible whereabouts of Harvard Nbk 2 in the years following the departure of S. and his party from Marlow. The original published text remained undiscovered until Judith Chernaik traced and reprinted it in 1969 (see below). It appeared over the signature PLEYEL, perhaps (as suggested in 1975 404) from Haydn’s living pupil Ignaz Pleyel, who may plausibly have composed the music Claire had been singing, or from Henry Pleyel, the rationalist hero of Charles Brockden Brown’s novel Wieland, or The Transformation (New York 1798). Certainly, S.’s pet name for Claire Clairmont came from Brown’s Ormond; or, the Secret Witness (New York 1799), for ‘The heroine of this novel, Constantia Dudley, held one of the highest places, if not the very highest place, in Shelley’s idealities of female character’ (Peacock Works viii 77). Mary S. had probably read this novel in July (Mary Jnl i 177, which however identifies Mary’s entry ‘Read Miss E’s Harrington and ormond — Arthur Mervyn’ as a reference to Edgeworth’s Harrington, a tale, and Ormond, a tale). That Claire accepted the name is proved by the inscription on her former tomb at Antella near Florence, which gave her full name as ‘Clara Mary Constantia Jane Clairmont’ (N&Q 10th series, 8 October 1904, 284). The accomplished musician in Ormond was in fact Constantia’s rival, Helena Cleves, but ‘if ever human tones were qualified to convey the whole soul, they were those of Constantia’ when she did sing a ditty to herself in ch. xix. S. was extremely fond of vocal music, and had arranged at Marlow for Claire to resume lessons under a music master. Rogers describes the poem’s background and thematic significance in KSMB v (1953) 20–5; a good critical account is in Chernaik 52–8. Its affinities with Schiller’s ‘Laura am Klavier’ may be coincidental, but the influence of the ninth of Moore’s ‘Odes to Nea’ (1806) is less speculative: It felt as if her lips had shed A sigh around her, ere she fled, Which hung, as on a melting lute, When all the silver chords are mute, There lingers still a trembling breath After the note’s luxurious death, A shade of song, a spirit air Of melodies which had been there! (5–12) S. is known to have admired these Odes (see Mary S.’s letter to Thomas Moore, 18 January 1839, Mary L ii 308). Working from an erratic draft, Mary S. mistook the sequence of the stanzas, so that earlier eds have printed them in the order 4, 3, 1, 2.
