This charming evening song is one of Ives' gentlest works. It originated in 1903 with words called "The Sea of Sleep," but acquired new words, by Moore, in 1908. Ives chose to include the latter version in his publication 114 Songs, issued in 1922 and probably inspired by fears that he would die after his 1918 heart attack and diagnosis of diabetes.

The evening bells in the poem are a symbol of eternity. Their sound, says the poet, can tell of tales of the poet's youth, and will still be ringing when future generations of poets replace the writer.

The song begins with highly conventional harmonies, even and steady chords that represent the chiming bells. While the right hand chords are rolled softly but with an accent, the left is busy playing triplet tinabulations mostly in parallel fifths, a texture that persists through much of the song.

The melody, an attractive and highly communicative one, also stresses repeated notes to represent the bells. Since the voice part is written in 3/4 time against the piano's 6/8 time, the voice's three quarter notes represent a rhythmic pulse of three floating over the top of the piano's dotted quarter notes, creating two different music streams, two beats against three.

There is a conventional amount of chromaticism in the accompaniment (though none in the voice part) right up until nearly the end. Then, when the lyrics begin to see forward into the future, the accompaniment starts becoming densely chromatic.

Throughout the song, until then, the rolled chords in the right hand have not been difficult; they go through four notes of standard triads spaced up to a tenth from top to bottom. But in the last six measures the music starts to drift out of its key. The tempo slows from Moderato con moto to Adagio, and the piano accompaniment suddenly opens like a fan, the part extending from below the bass clef to an octave above the treble clef. At the same time tonality gets even more slippery, until a surprise, unprepared C sharp major chord.

With this gesture Ives provides an early version of his one of is "transcendental" or "eternal" conclusions.

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