The text for this work is the famous Robert Louis Stevenson poem of the same title. Deeply sonorous and accented complex harmonies open the work and the vocal line is stretched to widely spaced dissonant intervals (such as would be heard a half-century later in serialist music) - "Under the wide and starry sky, dig a grave and let me lie ... grieve for me ". Then the music concentrates briefly on this image, and begins to die away. Suddenly, the music becomes boldly declarative again with the line - "Here he lies where he longed to be. Home is the sailor home from sea and the hunter home from the hill". The phrase "from the hill" is repeated to a dotted trumpet-call rhythm like that of "Taps", slowly dying away. A final crashing chord is followed by a very quiet touh of harmonics.

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