CHAPTER VI.
THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY.
To what period we are to assign the composition of this work is uncertain; it did not, at any rate, appear until 1847, when the two volumes of minor poems had passed through four editions.
Through five successive editions did the Poet alter, enlarge, and retouch this work. The original sketch differs as much from the present text as does the first rough draught of "Hamlet" from the "Hamlet" "enlarged to almost as much again as it was." The intercalary songs, six in number,[1] with the passage begin-
- ↑ The fifth song, "Home they brought her warrior dead," of which another version is given in the volume of Selections, is a translation from the Anglo-Saxon fragment "Gudrnn," which may be found in Conybeare's "Anglo-Saxon Poetry." The difference between the ancient and the modern ballad affords a fine illustration of the poet's wonderful sensitiveness of touch.—Communicated by a Correspondent.
