MANUSCRIPT: There are three autograph copies. That reproduced above was one of four poems (BPL Higg 27) enclosed in a letter (BPL Higg 74) to T. W. Higginson, written in October or November 1871. A second fair copy (Bingham 94-10) is identical in text and form, except that it is without stanza division and that lines 5 and 6 are without punctuation. It is dated at the bottom "December 5th," and was evidently written somewhat later than the copy to Higginson. The worksheet draft (Bingham 94-11) also survives:

The Days that we can spare
Are those a Function die
Or Friend or Nature - stranded then
In our Economy

Our Estimates forsook
Our Affluence a Whim
We let go all of Time without
Arithmetic of him