52. 'SUMMA.' This poem had, I believe, the ambitious design which its title suggests. What was done of it was destroyed, with other things, when he joined the Jesuits. My copy is a contemporary autograph of 16 lines, written when he was still an undergraduate; I give the first four. A.
53. What being. Two scraps in H. I take the apparently later one, and have inserted the comma in line 3.
54. 'ON THE PORTRAIT, &c. Monastereven, Co. Kildare, Christmas, '86.' Autograph with full title, no corrections, in A. Early drafts in H.
55. The sea took pity. Undated pencil scrap in H.
56. ASHBOUGHS (my title). In H in two versions; first as a curtal sonnet (like 13 and 22) on same sheet with the four sonnets 44-47, and preceding them: second, an apparently later version in the same metre on a page by itself; with expanded variation from seventh line, making thirteen lines for eleven. I print the whole of this second MS., and have put brackets to show what I think would make the best version of the poem: for if the bracketed words were omitted the original curtal sonnet form would be preserved and carry the good corrections. The uncom- fortable eye in the added portion was perhaps to be worked as a vocative referring to first line (?).
57. Hope holds. In H, a torn undated scrap which carries a vivid splotch of local colour.—line 4, a variant has A growing burnish brighter than.
58. ST. WINEFRED. G. M. H. began a tragedy on St. Winefred Oct. '79, for which he subsequently wrote the chorus, No. 36, above. He was at it again in 1881, and had mentioned the play in his letters, and when, some years later, I determined to write my Feast of Bacchus in six- stressed verse, I sent him a sample of it, and asked him to let me see what he had made of the measure. The MS. which he sent me, April 1, 1885, was copied, and that copy is the text in this book, from A, the original not being discoverable. It may therefore contain copyist's errors. Twenty years later, when I was writing my Demeter for the lady-students at Somerville College, I re- membered the first line of Caradoc's soliloquy, and made some use of it. On the other hand the broken line I have read her eyes in my 1st part of Nero is proved by date to be a coincidence, and not a reminiscence.—Caradoc was to 'die impenitent, struck by the finger of God'.
59. What shall I do. Sent me in a letter with his own melody and a note on the poem. 'This is not final of course. Perhaps the name of England is too exclusive.' Date Clongower, Aug. 1885. A.
60. The times are nightfall. Revised and corrected draft in H. The first two lines are corrected from the original opening in old syllabic verse:
The times are nightfall and the light grows less;
The times are winter and a world undone;