ABSTRACT
First published in Rossetti 1870 under the title Lines Written for Miss Sophia Stacey and followed by the notation Via Val Fonda, Florence, the address of the Palazzo Marini where the Shelleys lodged from 2 October 1819 to 26 January 1820. The MS from which Rossetti took his text was supplied by the two sons of the woman to whom the verses are addressed in the 1870 title, though ‘with the sole reservation to themselves of the exclusive right of setting them to music’. Sophia Stacey (1791–1874) was twenty-eight years old, just over a year older than S., when in November 1819 she arrived in Florence together with her travelling companion Miss Corbet Parry-Jones. The two women called on the Shelleys on 10 November, and the following day they took lodgings in the Palazzo Marini where S., Mary and Claire were staying in the boarding-house kept by Mme Merveilleux du Plantis. There was a family connection between S. and Miss Stacey. On the premature death of her parents — her father had been a well-to-do brewer of Maidstone and had served as mayor of the town — she became the ward of S.’s uncle by marriage Robert Parker, husband of Sir Timothy Shelley’s eldest sister. The chief source of information on S.’s relations with Sophia during the seven weeks of their acquaintance is the journal that she kept of her foreign travels. This has been lost, but the portion covering her stay in Florence from 8 November to 29 December 1819 is summarised with extracts by Helen Rossetti Angeli, Shelley and His Friends in Italy (1911) 95–105. The account given here is indebted to Angeli, to the note on Sophia by her great-great-grandson Rodney M. Bennett (K-SJ 35 (1986) 16), and to the same author’s privately printed pamphlet The Catty Family descended from Louis François Catty through James Patrick Catty (2000), to MYRS viii 277–79, and to Bieri II 169–77. In addition to the present poem, a number of S.’s lyrics are implicated more or less directly with Sophia Stacey: see Goodnight, Love’s Philosophy, On a Dead Violet: To ——, Time Long Past (Longman iii 246–7, no. 275), To —— (I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden), Music (I pant for the music which is divine) (Longman iii 238–41, no. 273)) and possibly The Indian Girl’s Song. See also Holy, my sweet love (Longman iii 247–8, no. 276)), Follow to the deep wood, sweetest (Longman iii 245–6, no. 274A), and ?[Oh] Music, thou art not “the food of Love” (Longman iii 15–16, no. 223). See also headnote to Epipsychidion.
