[First published, Poems, 1816.]
FOOTNOTES:
[432] {537} ["He there (Byron, in his Memoranda) described, and in a manner whose sincerity there was no doubting, the swell of tender recollections, under the influence of which, as he sat one night musing in the study, these stanzas were produced,—the tears, as he said, falling fast over the paper as he wrote them."—Life, p. 302.
It must have been a fair and complete copy that Moore saw (see Life, p. 302, note 3). There are no tear-marks on this (the first draft, sold at Sotheby's, April 11, 1885) draft, which must be the first, for it is incomplete, and every line (almost) tortured with alterations.
"Fare Thee Well!" was printed in Leigh Hunt's Examiner, April 21, 1816, at the end of an article (by L. H.) entitled "Distressing Circumstances in High Life." The text there has two readings different from that of the pamphlet, viz.—
Examiner: "Than the soft one which embraced me."
Pamphlet: "Than the one which once embraced me."
Examiner: "Yet the thoughts we cannot bridle."
Pamphlet: "But," etc.
—MS. Notes taken by the late J. Dykes Campbell at Sotheby's, April 18, 1890, and re-transcribed for Mr. Murray, June 15, 1894.
A final proof, dated April 7, 1816, was endorsed by Murray, "Correct 50 copies as early as you can to-morrow.">[
[rh] The motto was prefixed in Poems, 1816.
[ri] {538} Thou my breast laid bare before thee.—[MS. erased.]