ABSTRACT
The sole holograph of this poem is a rough draft in Nbk 17 p. 154 rev. beneath sketches in dark ink of two trees. It comprises two stanzas, each of four lines, with some mostly cancelled lines below; it is untitled. The stanza beginning ‘Rose leaves, when the rose is dead’ is written directly beneath the tree sketches in the top half of the page in light ink, and is struck through with two diagonal lines in pencil. The one beginning ‘Music, when soft voices die’ is directly beneath; revised and completed in darker ink, it is crossed with a single diagonal pencil stroke and there is a dash stroke above and a cross beneath, both in ink. The draft at the foot of the page, also in dark ink, yields one uncancelled line and the first word of another. Carlene A. Adamson suggests that the much-cancelled verses drafted in pencil reverso on p. 155 rev. and crossed through with two diagonal pencil strokes ‘demonstrate a syntactical similarity’ (BSM vi 43) to the unfinished stanza at the foot of p. 154 rev.
