MANUSCRIPTS: There are two, identical in text. The copy reproduced above, in packet 1 (H 2f), was written during 1859. The letter to Mrs. J. G. Holland in which the lines are incorporated was written on 2 March of the same year (H H 16):

As by the dead we love to sit -
Become so wondrous dear -
As for the lost we grapple
Though all the rest are here -
In broken Mathematics
We estimate our prize
Vast, in it's fading ratio
To our penurious eyes!