This is an attractive song for a work that was obviously written as a student's technical exercise. After three measures of introduction the song is, indeed, a two-part canon for the solo voice and the bass line, with the right hand occupied by filling in harmonies in (mostly) light, syncopated off-beats.

The song was originally written in 1893 and was then also called "Canon," but the words were by Thomas Moore. John Kirkpatrick gave the earlier version number Kz 15b in his catalog of Ives' works, and listed it as "Canon: Oh! The days are gone, when Beauty bright."

This is a rare case, among the 20 or so instances when Ives changed the words of a song, that he used the earlier version in his 1922 publication 114 Songs, where the Moore version is Song No. 111.

For this second version Ives completely rewrote the last five measures of the song, which now have a more assertive and more chromatic bass line and fuller chords yet a less active texture.

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