There's a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street,
In the City as the sun sinks low;
Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it sweet
Just as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meet
Mellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feet
Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat
In the land where the dead dreams go.
So it's Jeremiah, Jeremiah,
What have you to say
When you meet the garland girls
Tripping on their way?
All around my gala hat
I wear a wreath of roses
(A long and lonely year it is
I've waited for the May!)
If any one should ask you,
The reason why I wear it is,
My own love, my true love, is coming home to-day.
It's buy a bunch of violets for the lady
(IT'S LILAC TIME IN LONDON; IT'S LILAC TIME IN LONDON!)
Buy a bunch of violets for the lady;
While the sky burns blue above:
On the other side of the street you'll find it shady
(IT'S LILAC TIME IN LONDON; IT'S LILAC TIME IN LONDON!)
But buy a bunch of violets for the lady;
And tell her she's your own true love.
There's a barrel-organ caroling across a golden street,
In the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow;
And the music's not immortal, but the world has made it sweet
And enriched it with the harmonies that make a song complete
In the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning meet,
As it dies into the sunset glow;
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain
That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light,
And they've given it a glory and a part of play again
In the Symphony that rules the day and night.
And there, as the music changes,
The song runs round again;
Once more it turns and ranges
Through all its joy and pain:
Dissects the common carnival
Of passions and regrets;
And the wheeling world remembers all
The wheeling song forgets.
Once more La TRAVIATA sighs
Another sadder song:
Once more IL TROVATORE cries
A tale of deeper wrong;
Once more the knights to battle go
With sword and shield and lance,
Till once, once more, the shattered foe
Has whirled into--A DANCE--
Come down to Kew in lilac time; in lilac time; in lilac time;
Come down to Kew in lilac time; (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with Love in summer's wonderland;
Come down to Kew in lilac time; (it isn't far from London!)