MANUSCRIPTS: The copy reproduced above was written late in 1863 in packet 30 (H 163C). A second copy of the second stanza only is incorporated in a letter (BPL Higg 60) to T. W. Higginson, postmarked 9 June 1866. It is identical in text with packet copy; in form it differs only in that capitals are retained only for the initial words of lines, and that the quatrain concludes with a period.

PUBLICATION: The two quatrains were first published in the Independent, XLVIII (21 May 1896), 1, titled "Time's Healing." They were sent to the magazine by Mrs. Todd and derived from a transcript she had previously made of the packet copy. They were also included in Poems (1896), 141, without title. The stanza to Higginson is in Letters (ed. 1931 only), 283.