I am not officially developing the new “Little River” sketch, but lines flooded my thoughts this morning—ones that will almost certainly appear in the final draft. This was simply the result of mulling over the initial sketch, but being a Romanticist—albeit a rational one—I shall attribute the inspiration to the Muse—it seems more poetic.

One of the sorest decisions in poetry is sacrificing the line one adores for the one best suited to the poem; paradoxically, the latter is almost invariably worse than the former—and precisely therefore better!