MANUSCRIPT: The penciled draft reproduced above (Bingham 104-8) was probably written just before the following, which is incorporated in a letter (H Higg 4) to T. W. Higginson, written late in 1882:

Come show thy Durham Breast to her who loves thee best -
Delicious robin -
And if it be not me, at least within my Tree
Do thy avowing -

PUBLICATION: The letter to Higginson was published in Letters (ed. 1931 only), 317; the penciled draft in New England Quarterly, XX (1947), 37.