LURIANA LURILEE by Charles Elton (1839-1900)*

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 changing 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 and 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 daisy lea,
With their palm leaves and cedar sheaves,
Luriana, Lurilee.

Swing, swing, swing on a bough,
Luriana, Lurilee,
Till you sleep in a humble heap
Or under a gloomy churchyard tree,
And then fly back to swing on a bough,
Luriana, Lurilee.

from Another World Than This...:an anthology compiled by V. Sackville-West
and Harold Nicolson 1945 p109 (first published into the world)
*He was related by marriage to Lytton Strachey. This is why Virginia Woolf
knew this unknown poem and quoted in To the Lighthouse (1927).
cf. VW's letter to Philippa Strachcy (13 Dec. 1927)