This is a worthy effort that Ives did not include in his retrospective volume of 114 Songs. The text is from William Winter (1836 - 1917), an influential American poet and writer who was drama critic of the New York Tribune for 44 years. The poem was published as "Three Pictures" in 1871. The three pictures represent the three stages in the separation of a faithful woman and her missing lover. In the first, they say farewell, and she begs him to return from his journeys. But the waves seem to say, "He'll come no more." The second picture imagines her in his absence, calling across the waters for him to remember her and love him. The sea in response tells "of his doom," with the same message. In the third picture her grave only stands vigil on the shore, while the other sleeps beneath the wave. But the final message is "They part no more! They part no more!"

Ives dated the song 1897. The poem and much of the musical language are Victorian, and there is a danger that the song can become mawkishly sentimental. The opening tempo marking is "Thoughtful," and the song is in 4/4 time. The second scene of the poem has essentially the same melody as the first, though the texture of the accompaniment has subtle changes as the message becomes more somber. However, for the concluding verse, the time signature shifts to 3/8, and the tempo is marked "Serene." It will be seen that Ives is prescribing moods; the two sections of the music would be in much the same tempo, but with a different effect. Particularly effective is the point at which the poem describes the beauty of the graveside on a sparkling and clear day and Ives invents a running quarter-note accompanying line that seems to dispel the earlier mists of gloom.

At some point after the composition of the song Ives set different words to it. He wrote out the melody only, and underneath it penciled in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes' hymn "O Love Divine That Stopped to Share." He made a few alterations, such as interpolating three measures at two locations for formal balance and moving almost all the last section of the song from the original D major to A major. John Kirkpatrick cataloged the original secular version as Kz 48a and the contrafactum (i.e., retexting), which Ives titled "Hymn of Trust," as Kz 48b.

It is the existence of this sacred version of the song that provides the most credible speculation as to why it was not included in 114 Songs. That volume was intended to give an airing to the large number of songs Ives had written that had never had any public performance. "Hymn of Trust" was probably adapted as a church solo; Ives at the time was organist of Center Church in New Haven while he attended Yale University. He sometimes provided original compositions for the church. Thus, Ives may have thought, the song had already received its due exposure.

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