Bellini had briefly considered the possibility of writing an opera based on Hugo's novel Hernani, and had even composed a few sketches, but never went further than those. However, during the last year of his life he apparently reworked one of these sketches into this song. While the text is blandly pastoral, the music sounds much like it could have been written for an opera, opening with a combination of brooding chords and lyrical arpeggios that sound remarkably like a piano reduction of an orchestral passage introducing an aria. The exact orchestration suggests itself—a flute or clarinet for the wistful passages in the higher register, a harp for the arpeggios, the darker strings and winds for the brooding chords. The vocal part opens with a brief and gloomy recitative-like passage, before launching into an urgent and dramatic "aria" that certainly sounds like it could be setting a libretto based upon such a flamboyantly Romantic play. The work ends with a series of brief chords that could as easily conclude an aria as a song.

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