Luriana, Lurilee

A Garden Song

Come out and climb the garden-path,

Luriana Lurilee,

The China rose is all abloom

And buzzing with the yellow bee

We’ll swing you on the cedar-bough,

Luriana Lurilee.

I wonder if it seems to you

Luriana Lurilee

That all the lives we ever lived

And all the lives to be,

Are full of trees and waving leaves,

Luriana Lurilee.

How long it seems since you and I,

Luriana Lurilee.

Roamed in the forest where our kind

Had just begun to be,

And laughed & chattered in the flowers,

Luriana Lurilee.

How long since you and I went out,

Luriana Lurilee

To see the kings go riding by

Over lawn and daisylea,

With their palm-sheaves and cedar-leaves

Luriana Lurilee.

Swing, swing on the cedar bough!

Luriana Lurilee

Till you sleep in a bramble-heap

Or under the gloomy churchyard-tree,

And then fly back to swing on a bough,

Luriana Lurilee.

Whitsuntide 1899

Charles Isac [sic] Elton