During Ives' first four years on his own after graduating from Yale University in 1898, it appears (contrary to his legend) that he kept open the option of pursuing music composition, performance, and teaching as a career.

This is a gentle and very pretty love song expressing thankfulness for the singer's love. The text, by an unknown poet, is an odd mixture of religious expression and genteel love imagery: "This I sent the Thrice Divine, Holding both your hands in mine, And looking in those pools of blue, "How good God is to give me you!"

Perhaps the most striking thing about the song is that Ives is entirely sincere in setting this sentiment. A few years later, letters to him from his fiancée and then wife, Harmony, do express pretty much the exact same thought. Ives' return letters don't survive, but in all probability said much the same thing.

The song is regular in rhythm and so far as the vocal line goes almost entirely diatonic, though there are more accidentals in the piano part.

With extensive revisions Ives used the music again the next year in the song Where the Eagle, Kz 61b, song No. 94 of 114 Songs.

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