Although the words to this song are trite, they inspired young Charles Ives (only 17 or 18 years old) to write very pretty music. The melody, dominated by scale-wise lines, flows nicely while the accompaniment is built on broken chord patterns in the left hand.

The word setting is somewhat clumsy. This is partly due to the choice of words, which are by an unknown poet. The first line, with a clumsily dropped syllable, is "Her eyes are like unfath'mable lakes."

The song is quite short, and has a well-controlled dose of chromaticism, though little more than was fashionable in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

In his original draft of the song, Ives included a highly original ending of three quiet measures with a very unorthodox succession of chords. He struck these out later, evidently to preserve the commercial viability of the song. His editor John Kirkpatrick reinstated this ending as a matter of choice.

Ives improved the song by lowering it by a whole step and ditching the words in favor of lines by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, beginning "The hope I dreamed of was a dream," which fit the melody much better. He published it as Mirage, Kz 14b, Song No. 70 in his publication of 114 Songs.

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