Dickinson sent this fair-copy poem, composed around 1871 (RWF) or 1872 (THJ), to Susan Dickinson. Several years later, possibly in 1878 (THJ, RWF), she returned to revise the poem. A fragment, A 509 / 510, inscribed with a variant of the poem's last lines, may have been her point of departure for the later version. For an intermediate-copy draft of the 1878 version of the poem, see A 508; for a fair-copy draft of the 1878 version of the poem, possibly intended for Elizabeth Holland, but found among Dickinson's papers after her death, see A 511; for another fair-copy draft of the poem also composed around this time and found among Dickinson's papers after her death, see Princeton; for a fair-copy of the final stanza composed around 1883 (RWF) and signed "March," see A 786; this copy may have been sent to Mabel Loomis Todd.

A large "X" is penciled on the verso of the second leaf; its authorship and significance are not known.