This text is the earliest surviving manuscript of the poem; it represents a major revision of the first version done in 1847-1848 by DGR, when the poet wrote the poem in a non-dramatic form.
The Delaware MS is dated 1847-48 at the end. This date on the
MS—like the date on the
The Delaware MS, a fair copy with some corrections made at uncertain dates,
must represent DGR's effort to revise the earliest text (no documents of the
latter appear to survive). InThe Stealthy School of Criticism
The Delaware MS of the poem is copied on four pages torn from one of DGR's
characteristic small lined notebooks. The notebook would have been the one
he gave to Ruskin in the early months of 1860 (see DGR's letter to
Allingham, 31 July 1860 in Correspondence
The Delaware Art Museum preserves an interesting body of materials associated with this manuscript. These materials include letters by various persons, including T. J. Wise and Bancroft, in which the character of the manuscript is discussed.
Composed early-mid 1860 as a complete recasting of the first (non-dramatic) version of the poem, which was done in 1847-1848, as the date on this manuscript shows.
The manuscript shows only slight revisions, but the whole of the text is lightly cancelled in pencil by long sweeping crossout lines. These lines indicate that DGR, in copying the poem into the notebook that he buried with his wife in 1862, altered the text yet once more.
This text seems far more revealing, in a personal way, than the received version of the poem. The non-dramatic first version of the poem comes through in this text quite strongly at various points, not least of all perhaps in the concluding verse paragraph.
1847-48