MANUSCRIPT: HCL (ARS 7). Ink. Dated: Amherst. January 29, 1850.

PUBLICATION: L (1894) 39-45; LL 137-140, in part; L (1931) 35-40, in part, with conclusion misplaced.

Following ED's letter to Abiah of 29 October 1848 (no. 26), there had been a break in their correspondence. With this letter ED carries out the purpose she mentioned to Jane Humphrey a few days earlier, and renews it. The paraphrase "we two meet again" recalls the opening line of Macbeth: "When shall we three meet again?" The "long lingering look" echoes the last line of stanza 22 in Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard: "Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind." "Lord, keep my memory green" is the last line in the Christmas book, published in 1848, by Dickens: The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain.