The sonnet was written either in 1869 or 1871. It was not included in
the
The House of Life
, which suggests an 1871 date. The subject of the poem, on the literal
level, is DGR's love for Jane Morris.
Originally written in the spring-summer 1869, DGR made a second copy at that time, and then made another fair copy in 1871 for Jane Morris.
Three texts of this sonnet descend to us but we can be certain of the date of
only one of these: the fair copy included among the sequence known as the
. The other two may have been written either before or after this text.
One is a corrected fair copy—the
The sonnet was not published by DGR or WMR. Oswald Doughty (first) published it in
The sonnet should be compared with DGR's
.