Henley wrote it in 1875, and in 1888 he published it in his first volume of poems, Book of Verses, in the section titled "Life and Death (Echoes)".

[2] He instead chose to travel to Edinburgh in August 1873 to enlist the services of the distinguished English surgeon Joseph Lister,[1]: 17–18 [3] who was able to save Henley's remaining leg after multiple surgical interventions on the foot.

[8] Each stanza takes considerable note of William Ernest Henley's perseverance and fearlessness throughout his early life and over twenty months under Lister's care.

"[2][9] In the fourth stanza, Henley alludes to the fact that each individual's destiny is under the jurisdiction of themselves, not at the mercy of the obstacles they face, nor other worldly powers.

Later, the fourth stanza of the poem alludes to a phrase from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount in the King James Bible, which says, at Matthew 7:14, "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."