No autograph copy of this unpublished poem is known. It exists in two variant transcripts. That reproduced above is in the possession of Miss Elizabeth S. Dickerman. It is a message which was sent to her mother with a basket of mayflwoers. The Rev. George S. Dickerman was pastor of the First Congregational Church from June 1883 until 1891. The poem could not therefore have been sent before the spring of 1884. The variant transcript below is in a letter (New York Public Library) from Mrs. F. H. Mills to Genevieve Taggard, 7 January 1930, which states that it accompanied an arbutus basket that ED sent to her neighbor Mrs. R. H. Mather:

There are two Mays,
And then, I must,
And then, perhaps, I shall.
How infinite the compromise
That indicates I will!