Words: Va­ri­ous­ly at­trib­ut­ed to E. C. Ells­worth or W. W. Ells­worth. The ear­li­est pub­li­ca­tion we’ve seen is in The New Laud­es Do­mi­ni, ed­it­ed by Charles S. Ro­bin­son & Ed­ward Jud­son (New York: Cen­tu­ry Com­pa­ny, 1881), page 6, which gives the au­thor as W. W. Ells­worth. It seems like­ly that E. C. & W. W. Ells­worth were re­lat­ed, per­haps ev­en the same per­son.

Music: Brahms’ Lul­la­by Joh­an­nes Brahms, 1868 (🔊 pdf nwc). Ar­ranged by A. Cor­ta­da, 1888, and Ri­chard W. Ad­ams, 2020 (pub­lic do­main).

If you have au­thor­i­ta­tive in­for­ma­tion on the ly­ri­cist, or know where to get his pho­to (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),