ut brackets to show what I think would
make the best version of the poem: for if the bracketed
words were omitted the original curtal sonnet form would
be preserved and carry the good corrections. The uncom-
fortable _eye_ in the added portion was perhaps to be worked
as a vocative referring to first line (?).

57. _Hope holds_. In H, a torn undated scrap which carries
a vivid splotch of local colour.--line 4, a variant has
_A growing burnish brighter than_.

58. ST. WINEFRED. G. M. H. began a tragedy on St. Winefred
Oct. '79, for which he subsequently wrote the chorus,
No. 36, above. He was at it again in 1881, and had
mentioned the play in his letters, and when, some years
later, I determined to write my _Feast of Bacchus_ in six-
stressed verse, I sent him a sample of it, and asked him to
let me see what he had made of the measure. The MS.
which he sent me, April 1, 1885, was copied, and that
copy is the text in this book, from A, the original not
being discoverable. It may therefore contain copyist's
errors. Twenty years later, when I was writing my
_Demeter_ for the lady-students at Somerville College, I re-
membered the first line of Caradoc's soliloquy, and made
some use of it. On the other hand the broken line _I have
read her eyes_ in my 1st part of _Nero_ is proved by date to
be a coincidence, and not a reminiscence.--Caradoc was
to 'die impenitent, struck by the finger of God'.

59. _What shall I do_. Sent me in a letter with his own melody
and a note on the poem. 'This is not final of course.
Perhaps the name of England is too exclusive.' Date
Clongower, Aug. 1885. A.

60. _The times are nightfall_. Revised and corrected draft in H.
The first two lines are corrected from the original opening
in old syllabic verse:

The times are nightfall and the light grows less;
The times are winter and a world undone;

61. 'CHEERY BEGGAR.' Undated draft with much correction,
in H. Text is the outcome.

62 and 63. These are my interpretation of the intention of some
unfinished disordered verses on a sheet of paper in H. In
63, line 1, _furl_ is I think unmistakable: an apparently
rejected earlier version had _Soft childhood's carmine
dew-drift down_.

64. 'THE WOODLARK.' Draft on one sheet of small notepaper
in H. Fragments in some disorder: the arrangement of
them in the text satisfies me. The word _sheath_ is
printed for _sheaf_ of MS., and _sheaf_ recurs in correc-
tions. Dating of July 5, '76