29. 'FELIX RANDAL. (Sonnet: sprung and outriding rhythm; six-foot lines.) Liverpool, Apr. 28, '80.' A. Text from A with the two corrections of B. The comma in line 5 after impatient is omitted in copy in B.
30. 'BROTHERS. (Sprung rhythm; three feet to the line; lines free-ended and not overrove; and reversed or counter- pointed rhythm allowed in the first foot.) Hampstead, Aug. 1880.' Five various drafts exist. A1 and A2 both of Aug. '80. B was copied by me from A1, and author's emendations of it overlook those in A2. Text therefore is from A 2 except that the first seven lines, being rewritten in margin afresh (and confirmed in letter of Ap. '81 to Canon Dixon), as also corrections in lines 15-18, these are taken. But the B corrections of lines 22, 23, almost certainly imply forgetfulness of A^. In last line B has correction Dearly thou canst be kind; but the intention of I'll cry was original, and has four MSS. in its favour.
31. 'SPRING AND FALL. (Sprung rhythm.) Lydiate, Lan- cashire, Sept. 7, 1880.' A. Text and title from B, which corrects four lines, and misdates '81. There is also a copy in D, Jan. '81, and see again Apr. 6, '81. In line 2 the last word is unleafing in most of the MSS. An attempt to amend the second rhyme was unsuccessful.
32. 'SPELT FROM SIBYL'S LEAVES. (Sonnet: sprung rhythm: a rest of one stress in the first line.)' Autograph in A— another later in B, which is taken for text. Date unre- corded, lines 5, 6, astray thus divided to show the rhyme.—6. throughther, an adj., now confined to dialect. It is the speech form of through-other, in which shape it eludes pursuit in the Oxford dictionary. Dr. Murray compares Ger. durch einander. Mr. Craigie tells me that the classical quotation for it is from Burns's 'Halloween', st. 5, They roar an cry a' throughther.—line 8. With, i.e. I suppose, with your warning that, &c.: the heart is speaking. 9. beak-leaved is not hyphened in MS.— 11. part, pen, pack, imperatives of the verbs, in the sense of sorting 'the sheep from the goats'.—12. A has wrong right, but the correction to right wrong in B is intentional. 14.—sheathe- in both MSS., but I can only make sense of sheath-, i.e. 'sheathless and shelterless'. The accents in this poem are a selection from A and B.
33. 'INVERSNAID. Sept. 28, 1881.' Autograph in H. I have found no other trace of this poem.
34. As kingfishers. Text from undated autograph in H, a draft with corrections and variants. In lines 3 and 4 hung and to fling out broad are corrections in same later pencilling as line 5, which occurs only thus with them. In sestet the first three lines have alternatives of regular rhythm, thus:
Then I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace and that keeps all his goings graces;
In God's eye acts, &c.
Of these lines, in 9 and 10 the version given in text is later than the regular lines just quoted, and probably pre- ferred: in l. 11 the alternatives apparently of same date.
35. 'RIBBLESDALE. Stonyhurst, 1882.' Autograph in A. Text from later autograph in B, which adds 'companion to No. 10' (= 16). There is a third autograph in D, June '83 with different punctuation which gives the comma between to and with in line 3. The dash after man is from A and D, both of which quote 'Nam expectatio creaturae ', &c. from Romans viii. 19. In the letter to R. W. D. he writes: 'Louched is a coinage of mine, and is to mean much the same as slouched, slouching, and I mean throng for an adjective as we use it in Lancashire'. But louch has ample authority, see the 'English Dialect Dictionary'.
36. 'THE LEADEN ECHO AND THE GOLDEN ECHO. Stony- hurst, Oct. 13, '82.' Autograph in A. Copy of this with autograph corrections dated Hampstead '81 (sic) in B.—Text takes all B's corrections, but respects punctuation of A, except that I have added the comma after God in last line of p. 56. For the drama of Winefred, see among posthumous fragments, No. 58. In Nov. 1882 he wrote to me: 'I am somewhat dismayed about that piece and have laid it aside for a while. I cannot satisfy myself about the first line. You must know that words like charm and enchantment will not do: the thought is of beauty as of something that can be physically kept and lost and by physical things only, like keys; then the things must come from the mundus muliebris; and thirdly they must not be markedly oldfashioned. You will sec that this limits the choice of words very much indeed. However I shall make some changes. Back is not pretty, but it gives that feeling of physical constraint which I want.' And in Oct. '86 to R. W. D., 'I never did anything more musical'.