This is a cycle of man's labour and love. The first and last songs are of effort and triumph in the control of nature, the second and third of tenderness and anguish in the love for woman. In the last song 'The Load of Fern' and 'the long voyaging of the year with her freight of harvest' represents man's struggle to gain a living from the earth. The voice-part was to some extent moulded by the vocal and dramatic qualities of the singer, Joseph Ward, to whom the work is dedicated.