This is one of the tender little poems that refer to the death of the poet's daughter Blanche, which occurred in March, 1847. The First Snow-fall and She Came and Went embody the same personal grief. When sending the former to his friend Sydney H. Gay for publication, he wrote: "May you never have the key which shall unlock the whole meaning of the poem to you." Underwood, in his Biographical Sketch says that "friends of the poet, who were admitted to the study in the upper chamber, remember the pairs of baby shoes that hung over a picture-frame." The volume in which this poem first appeared contained this dedication—"To the ever fresh and happy memory of our little Blanche this volume is reverently dedicated."

A changeling, according to folk-lore and fairy tale, is a fairy child that the fairies substitute for a human child that they have stolen. The changeling was generally sickly, shrivelled and in every way repulsive. Here the poet reverses the superstition, substituting the angels for the mischievous fairies, who bring an angel child in place of the lost one. Whittier has a poem on the same theme, The Changeling.

29. Zingari: The Gypsies—suggested by "wandering angels" above—who wander about the earth, and also sometimes steal children, according to popular belief.

52. Bliss it: A rather violent use of the word, not recognized by the dictionaries, but nevertheless felicitous.