Charles Ives was a sophomore or junior at Yale when he wrote this song. Music and athletics were the keys to his popularity at the tradition-bound university. He interpreted events of the day as unconventional keyboard improvisations he called "take-offs," taken more as commentary with sound effects than music by his classmates. (However, some of these became the basis for his more radical compositions of the next decade.)

He also wrote sentimental songs of the type that were popular on campuses in that day, and his is clearly one of them.

When he compiled his 114 Songs in 1920, probably intending it as a retrospective summation of his career in case he soon died from a heart attack and diabetes, he included eight tunes he called "Sentimental Ballads" that all date from that day.

The identity of the poet is not credited, so the assumption is that the rather mundane text is by Ives himself. "When dreams enfold me, then I behold thee," it begins. But the old flame is now absent, so the song only dreams in the end that they could be together. It ends calling on God to bless her.

The song is in a flowing 6/4 meter and is marked ("Con moto (not slowly)"). It has an almost waltz-like swing to it. It is very firmly in the key of F, with some conventional chromatic excursions that give it a charming late-Victorian flavor. However, just before the final measure, Ives, without preparation, harmonizes the last work in "God bless thee, Love," by following a simple F major chord with a B major chord plus an added G sharp, then, as if nothing odd happened, ends on a conventional C major seventh chord followed by an F chord.

This is decidedly odd; one wonders what Ives' fellow fraternity members or glee club singers thought if they ever sang it.

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