Musicologist Peter Evans has analysed the cycle. It is through-composed, with the harp supplying transitions from the mood of one poem to the next. As befits a birthday gift, it does not attempt to point out morals nor to invite deep reflection. The songs do not explicitly utilise Scottish musical forms, but are flavoured by echoes of them. Although the texts are all by a single poet, the cycle does not have a sense of the cumulative illumination of the poet's creative character as is found in other such cycles by Britten. It is "delightful but undemanding".
