The collection was partly the result of a burst of creativity during 1922, but several earlier poems were gathered into it. Two of them, "Yonder see the morning blink" (11) and "In the morning, in the morning" (23), had originally been intended for "A Shropshire Lad". Another poem from that period, “Epithalamium” (24), had been written as a late celebration of Jackson’s marriage. Some among the few that were written after had appeared in magazines and anthologies between 1900 and 1920. The most notable among these was “Epitaph on an army of mercenaries” (37), which had appeared in "The Times" (31 October 1917), commemorating the British Expeditionary Force on the third anniversary of the battle of Ypres. A translation into Greek elegiacs by John Maxwell Edmonds also appeared in the "Classical Review" that year.