The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe

To Constantia, Singing

[Published by Mrs. Shelley in "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Amongst the

Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian is a chaotic first draft, from

which Mr. Locock ["Examination", etc., 1903, pages 60-62] has, with

patient ingenuity, disengaged a first and a second stanza consistent

with the metrical scheme of stanzas 3 and 4. The two stanzas thus

recovered are printed here immediately below the poem as edited by Mrs.

Shelley. It need hardly be added that Mr. Locock's restored version

cannot, any more than Mrs. Shelley's obviously imperfect one, be

regarded in the light of a final recension.]