Severed the bones that bleach, the flesh that cleaves, And let our sifted ashes drop like leaves. I feel thy blood against my blood; my pain Pains thee, and lips bruise lips, and vein stings vein. Then, in very small clear script, opposite this outburst, is written, by itself, like a solo on a flute: Let fruit be crushed on fruit, let flower on flower, Breast kindle breast and either burn one hour. To this immediately follows: In her high place in Paphos, which is the opening of line 64 in the published version. But the first draft stops here, leaving that half-line uncancelled, and proceeds quietly, in a large hand, Saw love, a burning flame from crown to feet, and so on for six lines which are now to be found in the middle of the poem. Thereupon follows a breathless interlude of six couplets, scribbled with extreme violence and so curiously interwoven that the only way to explain their relation is to quote them: I would my love could slay thee; I am satiated With seeing thee live, and fain would have thee dead, Vex thee with amorous agonies, and shake Life at thy lips, and leave it there to ache; Strain out thy soul with pangs too soft to kill, Intolerable interludes, and infinite ill; I would earth had thy body as fruit to eat, And no mouth but some serpent's found thee sweet. I would find grievous ways to have thee slain, Intense device, and superflux of pain, Relapse and reluctation of the breath, Dumb tunes and shuddering semitones of death. If this passage be compared with the published text, it will be observed that firstly, there are, with the single alteration of "kill" for "slay," no verbal modifications whatever: and that secondly the couplets are shifted about like counters in a game, or as if they were solid objects which might be put here, there, or anywhere in a liquid setting. The first draft of _A Song of Italy_, now in the possession of Mr. Thos. J. Wise, presents the same characteristics, though in a less degree. We are still on the opening sheet of the draft of _Anactoria_, and it now presents to us, quietly and conscientiously written in the middle of the page: For I beheld in sleep the light that is In her high place in Paphos, heard the kiss Of body and soul that mix with eager tears, And laughter stinging thro' the eyes and ears, a sort of _tessera_ evidently left there to be fitted in whenever a favourable blank presented itself; we find it, without the smallest change of language, fixed in the middle of the poem. It is noticeable that the fragment "In her high place in Paphos" is now utilized. A storm of excitement presently ruffles the poet, and he turns the sheet in such agitation that he holds it upside-down. Without leading up to it in any way, he starts a passage _She came and touched me, saying_ "Who doth thee wrong, Sappho?"