?Tu wlium I did nut Ldust. a deep regret? i gQjjg seasaB regret
For Whom?I did not feel myoelf a Zany? Alas! by all experience, seldom yet (I merely quote what I have heard from many) Ha d lovers not some reason to regret The passion which made Solomon a Zany.
I've also seen some wives?not to forget?
Th e marriage state?the best or worst of any ?
were paragons
Wh o wa r the very pui agtin of wives, Yet made the misery of both uui lives.
rrt*at least two
.
POEMS IN PROCESS / A7
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The three stages of this poem labeled 'First Draft' are scattered through one of Shelley's notebooks, now in the Huntington Library, San Marino, California; these drafts have been transcribed and analyzed by Bennett Weaver, 'Shelley Works Out the Rhythm of A Lament,' PMLA 47 (1932): 570-76. They show Shelley working with fragmentary words and phrases, and simultaneously with a wordless pattern of pulses that marked out the meter of the single lines and the shape of the lyric stanzas. Shelley left this draft unfinished.
Apparently at some later time, Shelley returned to the poem and wrote what is here called the 'Second Draft'; from this he then made, on a second page, a revised fair copy that provided the text that Mary Shelley published in 1824, after the poet's death. These two manuscript pages are now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the first page is photographically reproduced and discussed by John Carter and John Sparrow, 'Shelley, Swinburne, and Housman,' Times Literary Supplement, November 21, 1968, pp. 1318-19.
O World, O Life, O Time
[First Draft, Stage 1} Ah time, oh night, oh day N i nnl IRI HQ, HO ni- N i I HI ni na, ni no Oh life O death, O time Tim e a di ?Mo u Tim e Ah time, j a time O-tim e [First Draft, Stage 2] O h time, o h night o h day ?O day uli Hl^lit, alas -??Death time night otr- Oh , Tim e Oh time o night oh day [First Draft, Stage 3] N a na, n a n a n a n a N a n a n a n a na?n a n a N a n a n a n a n a n a N a n a n a n a n a a n a N a n a na?n a na?n a n a N a n a n a na?n a n a n a n a n a N a n a n a n a na. N a n a N a n a n a n a na
.
A8 / POEMS IN PROCESS
Na na Na na na na na ' na!
Oh time, oh night, o day
alas
O day soronest, o day O day alas the day
That thou shouldst sleep when we awake to say
O time time?o death?o day
for
O day, o death life is far from thee O thou wert never free For death is now with thee
-And life io far fi'om ? O death, o day for life is far from thee
[Second Draft]1 ^ ^ ^
Out of the day & night A joy has taken flight Fresh spring & summer & winter hoar Fill my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more?o never more!
Wi-.
?VTTt
O World, o life, o time
?Will yU' On whose last steps I climb Trembling at those which I have trod2 before Whe n will return the glory of yr prime No more Oh never more
Out of the day & night A joy has taken flight?
autumn
-Fl'ULIR Green spring, & JUIIIIIILI & winter hoar
[FAIR COPY]
O World o Life o Time On whose last steps I climb Trembling at that where I had stood before
Whe n will return the glory of yr prime? No more, o never more
1. Shelley apparently wrote the first stanza of this the poem. draft low down on the page, and ran out of space For this draft and information, and for the tranafter crowding in the third line of the second script of the fair copy that follows, the editors are stanza; he then, in a lighter ink, wrote a revised indebted to Donald 11. Reiman. form of the whole of the second stanza at the top 2. Shelley at first wrote 'trod,' then overwrote that of the page. In this revision he left a space after with 'stood.' In the following line, Shelley at first 'summer' in line 3, indicating that he planned an wrote 'yr,' then overwrote 'thy.' insertion that would fill out the four-foot meter of 3. Not clearly legible; it is either 'gra' or 'gre.' A this line, and so make it match the five feet in the difference in the ink from the rest of the line indicorresponding line of the first stanza. cates that Shelley, having left a blank space, later In the upper right-hand corner of this manu-started to fill it in, but thought better of it and script page, Shelley wrote '1 am despair'?seem-crossed out the fragmentary insertion. ingly to express his bleak mood at the time he wrote
