Discussion
	In MS III, since the poem precedes “The Sun” (1828), this version cannot be a rough draft of the MS IA version, as claimed in the Library Edition (Works, 2:258 n. 1). Rather, the earlier version is the presentation copy for New Year’s in MS IA, which Ruskin copied with minor variants in MS III.
	Since “The Sun,” like “Time: Blank Verse,” is a New Year’s poem, Ruskin probably prepared an 1828 greeting for his family by completing “Harry and Lucy . . . vol. 2,” and following the prose tale with the MS III second poetry anthology, which includes these poems, as a suite. A similar pattern is possible for New Year’s 1827, when Ruskin may have included the one-year-old “The Needless Alarm” in the MS I poetry anthology following “Harry and Lucy . . . vol. 1.”
	Also in 1827, or possibly earlier, Ruskin uses “blank verse” likewise in the title “On the Rainbow: In Blank Verse.”
	In MS III, the poem wraps around MS III drawing, untitled no. 1, depicting a house very close to water, on which two people in a small boat are embarking either to or from a large ship. Since the drawing bears no evident relation to the poem, the plate may have occupied its place prior to the poem’s fair-copying. If so, the plate was probably intended to illustrate the preceding “Harry and Lucy . . . vol. 2,” which Ruskin may have expected to extend farther into the notebook.

Sources