ave been touching up some
old sonnets you have never seen and have within a few
days done the whole of one, I hope, very good one and
most of another; the one finished is a direct picture of
a ploughman, without afterthought. But when you read
it let me know if there is anything like it in Walt Whit-
man; as perhaps there may be, and I should be sorry for
that.' And again on Oct. 11, '87: 'I will enclose the
sonnet on Harry Ploughman, in which burden-lines (they
might be recited by a chorus) are freely used: there is in
this very heavily loaded sprung rhythm a call for their
employment. The rhythm of this sonnet, which is alto-
gether for recital, and not for perusal (as by nature verse
should be), is very highly studied. From much consider-
ing it I can no longer gather any impression of it: perhaps
it will strike you as intolerably violent and artificial.' And
again on Nov. 6, '87: 'I want Harry Ploughman to be
a vivid figure before the mind's eye; if he is not that the
sonnet fails. The difficulties are of syntax no doubt.
Dividing a compound word by a clause sandwiched into it
was a desperate deed, I feel, and I do not feel that it was
an unquestionable success.'

44, 45, 46, 47. These four sonnets (together with No. 56) are
all written undated in a small hand on the two sides of
a half-sheet of common sermon-paper, in the order in which
they are here printed. They probably date back as early
as 1885, and may be all, or some of them, those referred to
in a letter of Sept. 1, 1885: 'I shall shortly have some
sonnets to send you, five or more. Four of these came
like inspirations unbidden and against my will. And in
the life I lead now, which is one of a continually jaded
and harassed mind, if in any leisure I try to do anything
I make no way--nor with my work, alas! but so it must
be.' I have no certain nor single identification of date.

44. _To seem the stranger_. H, with corrections which my text
embodies.--l. 14, _began_. I have no other explanation
than to suppose an omitted relative pronoun, like _Hero
savest_ in No. 17. The sentence would then stand for
'leaves me a lonely (one who only) began'. No title.

45. _I wake and feel_. H, with corrections which text embodies:
no title.

46. PATIENCE. As 45. l. 2, _Patience is_. The initial capital is
mine, and the comma after _ivy_ in line 6. No title.

47 _My own heart_. As 45.--1. 6, I have added the comma after
_comfortless_; that word has the same gra