In 1918, Ives compiled a work he called Set No. 3 for small orchestra (No. Kv 40 in John Kirkpatrick's catalog of Ives' works). All three parts of it were either composed as songs and recast for small orchestra or inspired by poems, and sketched but later written in definitive form as small orchestra pieces. Then all of them were rewritten as songs to be included in Ives' self-published collection of 114 Songs in 1922. (The other movements of Kv 40 are "Adagio sostenuto" ("At Sea," Kz 120) and "Luck and Work," Kz 95.)

This composition seems to have been written at the time Set No. 3 was assembled, in 1918. In its song form it is a strong example of Ives the transcendentalist. The poetry is by Robert Underwood Johnson, a writer often set by Ives in the years just before the 114 Songs were published.

The text of the song deals with fate, unknowable, unpredictable, yet at the end pledges to press forward to "new horizons" regardless of what fate has in store.

This is one of Ives' more radical songs. It is marked to be played "Slowly," and is entirely without bar lines. The music therefore flows naturally. The melodic line is initially dark and mysterious, the opening dynamic marking of piano sinking to a barely audible ppp at a point where the rather thick bass chords (containing as many as eight different notes) is suddenly replaced by a different, very quiet, high chord consisting of all the adjacent black notes in more than an octave being sounded at once.

At the end, when the singer expresses the resolution to go forward despite what may befall him the dynamic suddenly rises in loudness, then takes on a strong block chord texture—different chords in different keys in the two hands—until the extreme loudness of fff is reached at the very end.

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