This was an important work in the output of Vaughan Williams in that it was his first major composition to draw attention from both public and critics. Stylistically, it is related to the Symphony No. 1, ("A Sea Symphony"), which also used texts by Walt Whitman, one of the composer's favorite poets.

If America borrowed its language from England, the poetry of Walt Whitman is a major part of our repayment for its use. English composers around 1900 considered Whitman's poetry powerful and liberating; Holst even said he could never have learned to set English words properly without studying Whitman. He and his friend Vaughan Williams simultaneously wrote their own versions of a passage from Whispers of Heavenly Death which contains the words "Darest thou now, O soul, walk out with me toward the unknown region." The two composers decided that Vaughan Williams' was the finer version. It was premiered at a choral festival in 1907 and won Vaughan Williams acclaim as the foremost young composer of the day. It is a 12-minute "Song for chorus and orchestra," Romantic in style and transcendental in mood, bursting forth with remarkable and powerful joyfulness at the conclusion.

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