The occasion of the sonnet is important. On 11 October DGR wrote to Theodore Watts that
“I heard the other day from Philip Marston with a sonnet addressed to me urging further poetry! This is truly Tuscan, and must be replied to in kind.” (
It appears that Marston's sonnet may well have had its desired effect, for in the following year DGR began writing poetry in earnest once again.
Marston, blind from birth, met DGR in 1870 and the two became friends. Marston greatly admired DGR's work and his own sonnets, which dominate his poetic forms, are much in debt to DGR's style. It isn't clear what sonnet Marston sent to DGR that inspired DGR's poetic response. When DGR died in 1882 Marston eulogized him with a sonnet.
DGR wrote the poem on 11 or 12 October 1878 as a response to the sonnet Marston had recently sent to him urging him to return to writing poetry, which DGR had largely set aside since 1873. He sent Marston a Ballads and Sonnets
First published in 1882 in Sharp's
DGR: A Record and a Study