Ashley MS 1861

'Astrophel and Other Poems'. 'The Union'; [1893]. Draft of stanza III, beginning 'Lovelier than thy seas are strong', written on one side only of a scrap (97 x 173mm.) torn, after the stanza was written, from a folio leaf of blue wove paper. No watermark. The final text found in the draft is identical with that printed on p. 115 of the first edition. The poem was composed in April 1893 in response to a request by Edward Dowden for a song for Irish Unionists (see letter from Swinburne to Dowden, 18 April 1893, printed in C. Y. Lang, Swinburne Letters, vi, 1962, pp. 56-57). The poem was first printed in the Nineteenth Century for May 1893, and reprinted in Astrophel and Other Poems, 1894, pp. 114-116. A facsimile of an autograph fair copy of the poem is found in T. J. Wise, Bibliography of Swinburne, i, 1919, p. 455. On the verso of 1861 is a fragment of prose in Swinburne's hand '. . . (they cannot blame me for / . . . ravagance & his sufferings ― they know they / (of the Library) can only blame him)'.

The MS. (formerly loose) is mounted on a guard tipped into brown levant covers into which was once bound a copy of the pamphlet An Appeal to England Against the Execution of the Condemned Fenians by Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1867. This pamphlet is one of Wise's forgeries, and the copy had been torn out of the binding before the Ashley Library came to the British Museum. Also included are the half-title of the pamphlet, signed on the verso 'ACSwinburne', apparently in old age (f. 3b), a note by W. M. Rossetti, signed 'WMR', concerning the date of the execution (f. 2), a press cutting concerning one of the Fenians (f. iii), and a bookseller's catalogue reference to the forged pamphlet (f. ii). An autograph fair copy of 'An Appeal to England' is Ashley MS. 5259.

Octavo; ff. iii+3.

includes:

• f. 1 Poetry ENGLISH: Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet: Poem, 'The Union', stanza 3, beg. 'Lovelier than thy seas are strong', by Algernon Charles Swinburne: 1893: Autogr. draft.