The sonnet eulogizes Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), the extraordinary
explorer, politician, and poet who was
a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. After her death in 1603, the new king James had Raleigh imprisoned in
the Tower on suspicion of treason. There he wrote his History
of the World
The date of the sonnet's composition is not known. WMR in his bibliography of 1906 stated that it was composed “Before Autumn 1881”. I judge that it was probably written between January and May 1881, and perhaps in February-March, when DGR was quite involved in discussions with Caine about his own contributions to Caine's volume of sonnets.
The only known autograph manuscripts are the two copies in the library of the Delaware Art Museum,
the
First printed in February 1882 in T. Hall Caine's edition of
Sonnets
of Three Centuries