WMR speculated that the date of the sonnet may have been 1860 (see WMR, , 293 ), but in 1911 he dated it 1869, which is Fredeman's date. WMR's earlier speculation may not be entirely amiss, however, as we can see from the Delaware manuscript of the sonnet, which antedates all later texts and bears an original title “For Answer(” (altered from “Questions” on the manuscript); both are characteristic of the titles he used before he had any thought to construct sequence.

Two other copies, both with corrections, survive in the Fitzwilliam composite sequence; one derived directly from the Delware manuscript, the other from the latter.

First printed as sonnet XIV in the sequence of sixteen sonnets published in the in March 1869. It was then printed in mid-August 1869 as part of the Penkill Proofs and remained in all proof stages until it was published in the 1870 and thereafter. It is Sonnet XXIX in the 1870 volume, and Sonnet LXIII in 1881.

WMR wrote of line 9: “I suppose this refers to an actual room in Rossetti's old-fashioned house, 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea” ( , 228 ). DGR moved there after his wife died in early 1862.

Baum rightly says that in the octave “the choice of illustration [is] rather strange” ( , 162 ), and the images in lines 5-8 are especially arresting because of the domestic suggestions reinforced in the sestet. These details suggest that the sonnet might well be taken as a kind of preface to the group of four sonnets [, , , and ] that immediately succeed it in the 1870 sequence. These are all early sonnets; as such, they come into the sequence in 1869-1870 carrying immediate (if subtextual) reflexive meanings. They are, in short, especially open to autobiographical readings because their very appearance in the sequence enacts a memorial gesture.

Doughty reads the sestet as an oblique, guilt-ridden memory of Jane Morris's visits to Cheyne Walk in the spring of 1868.

Baum, ed., , 161-162 Doughty, , 385-387 WMR, ), 227-228