This song by the 20-year-old Charles Ives was one that was rescued, in its original form, by the work of John Kirkpatrick, the pianist who was an early champion of Ives' music and whose editorial efforts were also an invaluable and pioneering effort.

He found it on one of Ives' stack of manuscript pages and recognized it as the original version of the song "The Young May Moon is Beaming, Love," Kz 22b (Song No. 88 of Ives' published collection of 114 Songs, text by Thomas Moore). Kirkpatrick says he found some suggestion in the manuscript that the song might actually have gone through three texts, with the original version being one of his German language student exercises.

With two exceptions, the older manuscript and the published version are substantially identical, musically. Of little consequence is Ives' later re-spacing of some chords. More intriguing is the fact that in the later version he cut out one measure containing a highly unusual chord: G-B flat-D flat-F-A flat-C-F#-B flat-D natural, which might be the earliest 11-tone chord in history. Kirkpatrick retained it, and suggested rolling it for effect.

His other major editorial decision regards the beginning of the song. It was missing its opening measures for piano, so Kirkpatrick added the opening of the 1895 version.

The author of this poem is unknown. The poem itself is little more than a genteel Victorian love poem, not out-of-place in any parlor. As if often the case, Ives' sensitive setting and his ability to create a good melody makes the song better than one would expect from reading the words.

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