43. 'HARRY PLOUGHMAN. Dromore, Sept. 1887.' Autograph in A.—Autograph in B has several emendations written over without deletion of original. Text is B with these corrections, which are all good.—line 10, features is the verb.—13, 's is his. I have put a colon at plough, in place of author's full stop, for the convenience of reader.— 15 = his lilylocks windlaced. 'Saxo cere- comminuit -brum.'—17, Them. These, A.—In the last three lines the grammar intends, 'How his churl's grace governs the movement of his booted (in bluff hide) feet, as they are matched in a race with the wet shining furrow overturned by the share'. G. M. H. thought well of this sonnet and wrote on Sept. 28, 1887: 'I have been touching up some old sonnets you have never seen and have within a few days done the whole of one, I hope, very good one and most of another; the one finished is a direct picture of a ploughman, without afterthought. But when you read it let me know if there is anything like it in Walt Whit- man; as perhaps there may be, and I should be sorry for that.' And again on Oct. 11, '87: 'I will enclose the sonnet on Harry Ploughman, in which burden-lines (they might be recited by a chorus) are freely used: there is in this very heavily loaded sprung rhythm a call for their employment. The rhythm of this sonnet, which is alto- gether for recital, and not for perusal (as by nature verse should be), is very highly studied. From much consider- ing it I can no longer gather any impression of it: perhaps it will strike you as intolerably violent and artificial.' And again on Nov. 6, '87: 'I want Harry Ploughman to be a vivid figure before the mind's eye; if he is not that the sonnet fails. The difficulties are of syntax no doubt. Dividing a compound word by a clause sandwiched into it was a desperate deed, I feel, and I do not feel that it was an unquestionable success.'
44, 45, 46, 47. These four sonnets (together with No. 56) are all written undated in a small hand on the two sides of a half-sheet of common sermon-paper, in the order in which they are here printed. They probably date back as early as 1885, and may be all, or some of them, those referred to in a letter of Sept. 1, 1885: 'I shall shortly have some sonnets to send you, five or more. Four of these came like inspirations unbidden and against my will. And in the life I lead now, which is one of a continually jaded and harassed mind, if in any leisure I try to do anything I make no way—nor with my work, alas! but so it must be.' I have no certain nor single identification of date.
44. To seem the stranger. H, with corrections which my text embodies.—l. 14, began. I have no other explanation than to suppose an omitted relative pronoun, like Hero savest in No. 17. The sentence would then stand for 'leaves me a lonely (one who only) began'. No title.
45. I wake and feel. H, with corrections which text embodies: no title.
46. PATIENCE. As 45. l. 2, Patience is. The initial capital is mine, and the comma after ivy in line 6. No title.
47 My own heart. As 45.—1. 6, I have added the comma after comfortless; that word has the same grammatical value as dark in the following line. 'I cast for comfort, (which) I can no more find in my comfortless (world) than a blind man in his dark world. . . .'—l. 10, MS. accents let.— 13 and 14, the text here from a good correction separately written (as far as mountains) on the top margin of No. 56. There are therefore two writings of betweenpie, a strange word, in which pie apparently makes a compound verb with between, meaning 'as the sky seen between dark mountains is brightly dappled', the grammar such as intervariegates would make. This word might have delighted William Barnes, if the verb 'to pie' existed. It seems not to exist, and to be forbidden by homophonic absurdities.
48. 'HERACLITEAN FIRE. (Sprung rhythm, with many out- rides and hurried feet: sonnet with two [sic] codas.) July 26, 1888. Co. Dublin. The last sonnet [this] pro- visional only.' Autograph in A.—I have found no other copy nor trace of draft. The title is from A.—line 6, con- struction obscure, rutpeel may be a compound word, MS. uncertain. 8, ? omitted relative pronoun. If so = 'the manmarks that treadmire toil foot-fretted in it'. MS. does not hyphen nor quite join up foot with fretted.— 12. MS. has no caesural mark.—On Aug. 18, '88, he wrote: 'I will now go to bed, the more so as I am going to preach tomorrow and put plainly to a Highland congrega- tion of MacDonalds, Mackintoshes, Mackillops, and the rest what I am putting not at all so plainly to the rest of the world, or rather to you and Canon Dixon, in a sonnet in sprung rhythm with two codas.' And again on Sept. 25, '88: 'Lately I sent you a sonnet on the Heraclitean Fire, in which a great deal of early Greek philosophical thought was distilled; but the liquor of the distillation did not taste very greek, did it? The effect of studying masterpieces is to make me admire and do otherwise. So it must be on every original artist to some degree, on me to a marked degree. Perhaps then more reading would only refine my singularity, which is not what you want.' Note, that the sonnet has three codas, not two.
49. ALFONSUS. Text from autograph with title and 'upon the first falling of his feast after his canonisation' in B. An autograph in A, sent Oct. 3 from Dublin asking for im- mediate criticism, because the sonnet had to go to Majorca. 'I ask your opinion of a sonnet written to order on the occasion of the first feast since his canonisation proper of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, a laybrother of our Order, who for 40 years acted as hall porter to the College of Palma in Majorca; he was, it is believed, much favoured by God with heavenly light and much persecuted by evil spirits. The sonnet (I say it snorting) aims at being intelligible.' And on Oct. 9, '88, 'I am obliged for your criticisms, "con- tents of which noted", indeed acted on. I have improved the sestet. . . . (He defends 'hew') … at any rate whatever is markedly featured in stone or what is like stone is most naturally said to be hewn, and to shape, itself, means in old English to hew and the Hebrew bara to create, even, properly means to hew. But life and living things are not naturally said to be hewn: they grow, and their growth is by trickling increment. . . . The (first) line now stands "Glory is a flame off exploit, so we say ".'
50. 'JUSTUS ES, &c. Jer. xii. 1 (for title), March 17,'89.' Autograph in A.—Similar autograph in B, which reads line 9, Sir, life on thy great cause. Text from A, which seems the later, being written in the peculiar faint ink of the corrections in B, and embodying them.—Early drafts in H.
51. 'To R. B. April 22, '89.' Autograph in A. This, the last poem sent to me, came on April 29.—No other copy, but the working drafts in H.—In line 6 the word moulds was substituted by me for combs of original, when the sonnet was published by Miles; and I leave it, having no doubt that G. M. H. would have made some such alteration.