"Before I sing it," she added, turning her head toward Mrs.Harlowe, "I had better try to tell you something about it.

It is about a letter somebody writes to a loved one, late in the night when everything is absolutely silent in the house.

Roughly translated it begins, 'I write to you, and the lamp listens.' Both the words and the music make one feel as though the bond between the two persons was so strong that they could almost communicate one with the other by thought.

That is really the idea De Bussy has tried to convey in his music and one can't help but understand it.

He brings it out strongly in the last part of the song where the writer of the letter says: 'Half dreaming, I wonder: Is it I who write to thee, or thou to me ?' Then it ends with a distant clock striking the hour.