MANUSCRIPT: There are two, both written early in 1886. That reproduced above is one of two elegies in memory of Helen Hunt Jackson incorporated in a letter (BPL Higg l0,) to T. W. Higginson. For an account of them, see poem number 1647. The second copy (Bingham) is in the semifinal draft of the same letter. It is identical in text and form except that "immortality" is capitalized, and line I ends with a comma. Preceding the quatrain, and introducing it, in both drafts is the sentence: "There is no Trumpet like the Tomb."

PUBLICATION: The final draft is among the letters to Higginson in Letters (ed. 1931 only), 321, where "famishing" (line 3) is altered to "banishing." The semifinal draft of the letter is in Letters (ed. 1894), 402; (ed. 1931), 391, dated 1880. The sentence preceding the quatrain is attached to it.