Please choose a song from the list below to be taken to the lyrics
SONGS TO GABRIEL SETOUN
Click here to order this CD
To May and Mary
To All Children
The World’s Music
Chivalry
Springtime
The Song of the Kettle
The Birds’ Song
Fairyland
The Eyes of God
The Coward Nettles
On the Beach
Romance
City Sparrows
To Bessie
My Valentine
God’s Work
Jack Frost
The Crows
Santa Claus
Lullaby
To May and Mary
Dear May and Mary, here's a book
Of songs for little boys and girls,
Where older folks in vain may look
For grains of gold or goodly pearls.
For grown-up people, being dull,
Will only see the lines and words,
Where bright-eyed little ones may cull
The flowers and hear the songs of birds.
And so I send this book to you,
Whose hearts are pure, whose eyes are clear;
And when you've read it through and through
You'll find your own names printed here.
And one of you will criticise,
And pick and choose and pass and praise;
The other one, with dreamy eyes,
Will see a world of summer days.
And in your cosy bed at night
The one will hear my songs in bars
Of music; while on wings of light
The other glides among the stars;
And on, and on, and on, she'll float,
Until she reach the Milky Way,
Returning in a moonbeam boat,
And wakening on the rim of day.
Back to top
To All Children
Dear children, living everywhere,
In country lane, in street, or square,
I would that I might take your hand,
And lead you into Fairyland,
Where life is all a sunny day,
And summer lasts from May to May;
Where woods and fields are green and fair,
And songs of gladness fill the air;
For birds and flowers and everything
That lives has got a song to sing.
And here three little children dwell,
Far happier than tongue can tell;
Through wood and vale and field they roam,
For Fairyland is all their home.
The birds come to them when they call,
And lambs and sheep, they know them all;
And winds and trees and bays and brooks
These children have for lesson books.
Oh, joyous is the life they spend,
Where every flower is their friend.
Oh children, I would take your hand,
And lead you to that Fairyland;
Where childhood's still a world of dream,
With songs of bird and wind and stream.
And should you read this book and stay
Where those three happy children play,
[Dear children, living everywhere,
In country lane, in street, or square,]
Though only for an hour it be,
The book will bless both you and me.
Back to top
The World’s Music
The world's a very happy place,
Where every child should laugh and sing,
And always have a smiling face,
And never sulk for anything.
I waken when the morning's come,
And feel the air and light alive
With strange sweet music, like the hum
Of bees about their busy hive.
The linnets play among the leaves
At hide-and-seek, and chirp and sing,
While, flashing to and from the eaves,
The swallows twitter on the wing.
And twigs that shake, and boughs that sway,
And tall old trees you could not climb,
And winds that come, but cannot stay,
Are singing gaily all the time.
From dawn to dark the old mill-wheel
Makes music, going round and round;
And dusty-white with flour and meal,
The miller whistles to its sound.
The brook that flows beside the mill,
As happy as a brook can be,
Goes singing its own song until
It learns the singing of the sea.
For every wave upon the sands
Sings songs you never tire to hear,
Of laden ships from summery lands,
Where it is summer all the year.
And if you listen to the rain
When leaves and birds and bees are dumb,
You hear it pattering on the pane,
Like Andrew beating on his drum.
The coals beneath the kettle croon,
And clap their hands and dance in glee;
And even the kettle hums a tune
To tell you when it's time for tea.
The world is such a happy place
That children, whether big or small,
Should always have a smiling face,
And never, never sulk at all.
Back to top
Chivalry
Up and down the garden,
Round the green we ride,
Knights in shining armour
Keeping side by side;
Rob upon a clothes-pole,
I upon a broom --
Back, ye thorny branches,
Give our chargers room!
Up and down the garden,
Round and round the green,
Knights go forth to battle
For their King and Queen.
Yonder is a castle,
Where a coward knave
Keeps a lovely princess
Prisoned like a slave.
"Ho, ye craven-hearted,
Cross a sword with me!"
Soon my trusty blade will
Bring him to his knee.
From the castle riding
Back across the green,
We shall bear the princess
To the King and Queen.
Now a band of robbers
Meets us, ten to one.
Here is work for heroes,
Ere the day be done.
Spurring on our chargers,
Hand to hand we fight.
Off go heads of nettles,
Flying left and right.
Such a crowd of victims
Scattered o'er the green!
So should knights do battle
For their King and Queen.
But before we rested
From the bloody fray,
Rob reeled from his charger,
Threw his sword away;
For a nettle stung him,
And the pain was sore;
Wounded in the sword hand,
He could fight no more.
So we left our chargers
Grazing on the green,
Where we'd battled bravely
For our King and Queen.
Then we hurried homeward,
Rob in pain and grief;
And I bound his wound up
With a docken leaf.
But when my mother saw it,
Blistered, hot, and red,
"Wounded, but not vanquished,"
That was what she said.
And she told how heroes
Gloried to have been
Wounded, fighting bravely
For their King and Queen.
Back to top
Springtime
Sing a song of springtime
Sing of March and May
When the sun is climbing
Higher every day;
Wakening and warming
All the icy earth;
From the clay clods charming
Flowers into birth.
Hanging hawthorn hedges
With a bloom of snow;
Kissing woodland edges;
Bidding violets grow.
Whereso’er he lays his
Light in golden bars,
Buttercups and daisies
Gleam like suns and stars.
Tender-eyed primroses
From their clustering leaves
Leap to life in posies,
Ranked around like sheaves.
And where gorse is gilding
Bushes bare and brown,
Birds are busy building
Quite a little town.
Now it’s wool they’re bringing,
Moss and straw and hay;
Songs of gladness singing
All the happy day.
Sing a song of springtime;
Sing of April showers;
Sing of golden butterflies
And birds and bees and flowers.
Back to top
The Song of the Kettle
When I come hungry home from school,
I like to hear the kettle sing;
And, seated on the kitchen stool,
I watch it hanging from the swing.
At first it does not say a word;
And then it tries a chirp or two,
And cheeps a bit, just like a bird
That wonders what he’ll sing to you.
But when its throat is cleared it sings
Of honey gathered by the bee;
Of cream and jam and all the things
That you would like to have at tea.
And then I shut my eyes and hear
The bees hum sweetly as they pass:
And see the lazy cows quite clear
Go wading ankle-deep in grass;
And harvest fields and hill and sky;
The river and the old mill-wheel,
Where horse and cart go rambling by
With swelling sacks of flour and meal.
That’s what the kettle sings about;
I see them like the things you dream;
When all at once its crooked spout
+Sends out a gush of hissing steam.
The lid goes rattling up and down
And won’t keep quiet till mother’s come.
And soon the teapot, fat and brown,
Is singing, and the kettle’s dumb.
Back to top
The Birds’ Songs
What do the birds all sing about
Through the livelong summer day?
The swallows call, "Come out; come out",
And the blackbirds whistle, "To play".
The mavis sings to the rosy dawn
Till the sun comes into the sky,
And flings his gold about the lawn
Where the dewy diamonds lie.
The lark leaps from the broomy links,
And shakes from his wings the dew;
And soaring sings, until he blinks
A speck in the azure blue.
Then every bower finds a voice;
And linnets and finches sing;
The grasses dance; the whins rejoice;
And the bells of the blue-bell ring.
Thus all the day do birdies sing
Until the light grows dim;
And then the lark on soaring wing
Towards heaven again must hymn.
The mavis tunes his throat anew,
And, piping to the west,
He bids the dying day adieu
And sings a song of rest.
"O what a happy world is ours
In summer and in spring,
With fields and trees and grass and flowers!"
That's what the birdies sing.
Back to top
Fairyland
Once upon a summer day,
When the very wind was warm,
Little Nellie walked away,
With a basket on her arm;
Past the fields and through the wood,
Till she reached an open place,
Where in wonder Nellie stood,
With the sunlight on her face.
For it was a lovely sight
Nellie saw that summer noon:
Roses red and roses white,
All the flowers of rosy June.
Daisies from their slender stems
Gazed up to the glorious sun;
Dewdrops lay like little gems
In the eyes of every one.
Golden buttercups were there,
Pinks with kingly coronets;
While the perfume in the air
Told of hiding violets.
Grass and trees were fresh and green,
Blossoms white and red and blue;
Flowers that she had never seen,
Fairer than the flowers she knew.
What a wondrous spot it was,
Lovelier than tongue can tell!
"Beautiful," she said, "because
This is where the fairies dwell."
And she heard the birds and bees
Filling all the air with song;
While a brook among the trees
Wimpled sweetly all day long.
"Bees, oh, tell me, as you hum,
Tell me, if you understand --
Have I really, really come
To the gates of Fairyland?"
But the birds and bees flew by,
Singing, humming, every one;
And a golden butterfly,
Fluttered gaily in the sun.
Then a cloud rose slowly up,
Roses sighed and [the] winds grew cold:
Daisy, pink, and buttercup,
Lost their silver and their gold.
Then little Nellie walked away,
With a basket on her arm.
On [that lovely] summer day,
When the very wind was warm.
Back to top
The Eyes of God
God watches o'er us all the day,
At home, at school, and at our play;
And when the sun has left the skies
He watches with a million eyes.
Back to top
The Coward Nettles
I saw a bumble bee to-day
Alight on a nettle leaf;
And when he had rested and buzzed away
He was not buzzing in grief.
"The nettle did not sting, you see,"
I said to mother and nurse;
"For the nettle knows if he stung the bee,
The bee would sting him worse."
The coward nettles only sting
The hands that are soft and small,
For the gardener grips them like anything
And they don't hurt him at all.
Back to top
On the Beach
On the beach when the tide is out,
The people meet and walk about;
And boys and girls come, spade in hand,
To make great burrows in the sand.
Wherefore the tide comes twice a day
To wash the footprints all away,
And leave the sand so smooth and clean,
You could not tell where holes had been.
And that is how the soft sea sand
Is not all ups and downs like land,
Where rough and sharp-edged stones are found,
While [here] the pebbles here are smooth and round.
Back to top
Romance
I saw a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea;
Her masts were of the shining gold,
Her deck of ivory;
And sails of silk, as soft as milk,
And silvern shrouds had she.
I saw a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea.
And round about her sailing
The sea was sparkling white,
The waves all clapped their hands and sang
To see so fair a sight;
They kissed her twice, they kissed her thrice,
And murmured with delight.
All round about her sailing
The sea was sparkling white.
Then came the gallant captain
And stood upon the deck,
In velvet coat and ruffles white,
Without a spot or speck,
And diamond rings and triple strings
Of pearls about his neck.
So came the gallant captain
And stood upon the deck.
And four and twenty sailors
Were round him bowing low,
On every jacket three times three
Gold buttons in a row,
And cutlasses down to their knees;
They made a goodly show.
All four and twenty sailors
Were round him bowing low.
And then the ship went sailing,
A-sailing o'er the sea;
She dived beneath the setting sun,
But never back came she,
For she found the lands of the golden sands,
Where the pearls and diamonds be.
I saw the ship go sailing
A-sailing o'er the sea.
Back to top
City Sparrows
I've read of children -- very sad,
Who live, and not because they're bad,
In houses where they do not hear
The birdies sing through all the year.
They've lots of sparrows, but, poor thing,
The sparrow cannot really sing,
He only chirps and twits, and tweets,
And all because he lives in streets.
For if he came and built his nest,
As all the singing birds find best,
In hedge or field, ere very long
He would have learned to sing a song.
So these poor children have not heard
The songs of any singing bird.
And they can only hear in dreams,
The pebbly murmuring of streams.
Nor have they seen the round sun rise,
All dripping in the eastern skies;
Nor see him sinking in the west,
Behind the purple hills to rest.
The colliers coming from the pit,
Seek out a sunny place to sit;
But big-town streets are built so high,
They shut the sunshine from the sky.
Could God not take these girls and boys
Away from all the din and noise
Of sunless streets, and set them where
They would not breathe in smoke for air?
Here, in the fields they'd romp and run,
To hear the birds and see the sun;
Till God would clap His hands and shout,
To see His children run about.
Back to top
To Bessie
I am gathering up to take a trip
To London Town, to London Town.
The cheapest way is to go by ship
To far-away London Town.
But quicker it is to go by rail;
So steaming away o'er hill and dale,
I shall speed as fast as the Royal Mail
To famous London Town.
I cannot come whenever I will
To London Town, to London Town,
Or I'd stand to-morrow on Denmark Hill,
In far-away London Town.
For, oh, it's there that I fain would be!
Where a little lass that I long to see
Is watching and waiting to welcome me
To famous London Town.
But I'm coming up to print a book
In London Town, in London Town;
That will bring the songs of bird and brook
To far-away London Town.
And when it comes from the printing press
I'll send it straight to the good Queen Bess:
And Denmark Hill is my Queen's address,
In famous London Town.
And she shall read her name in verse
In London Town, in London Town;
And the names of little friends of hers
Far away from London Town.
But when I come I mustn't miss
A great reward for doing this --
A kiss of greeting and a good-bye kiss
From Bessie in London Town.
Back to top
My Valentine
The rose is red,
The violet's blue,
That's what I've said
to Cissy Hugh.
For I am ten and she is nine,
And I'm sending her a valentine.
I wrote as neat
As I could do
The honey's sweet
And so are you,
And then made crosses in a line,
For kisses on her valentine.
Then must I say
What none should miss:
And so are they
Who send you this,
And every word was written fine
Upon her pretty valentine.
And last, how sweet
To say to Cis
And when we meet
We'll have a kiss.
Now I shall write her name and mine,
And take to her my valentine.
But when I got
To Cissy from,
I made a blot
Instead of Tom,
And big tears fell on every line;
So Cissy lost her valentine.
Back to top
God’s Work
Cows in the meadow
And birds in the tree;
Horses on highways
And fish in the sea;
Sailors in schooners,
And miners in mines,
Deep down in pits where
The sun never shines;
Girls playing jin-go-ring;
Boys sounding tops;
Mothers in kitchens,
And fathers in shops;
The sun in the heavens,
From morning to night,
Making the (fields and) flowers
Laugh in his light;
Watching o'er everything
All the day through;
O what a lot of work
God has to do!
Back to top
Jack Frost
The door was shut, as doors should be,
Before you went to bed last night;
And yet, Jack Frost got in, you see,
And left your window silver white.
He must have waited 'till you slept;
And not a single word he spoke,
But pencilled o'er the panes and crept
Away again before you woke.
And now you cannot see the hills
Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane;
But there are fairer things than these,
His fingers traced on every pane.
Rocks and castles towering high;
Hills and dales and streams and fields;
And knights in armour riding by,
With nodding plumes and shining shields.
And here are little boats, and there
Big ships with sails spread to the breeze;
And yonder, palms trees waving fair
On islands set in silver seas.
And butterflies with gauzy wings;
And herds of cows and flocks of sheep;
And fruit and flowers and all the things
You see when you are sound asleep.
For creeping softly underneath
The door, when all the lights are out,
Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe
And knows [] the things you think about.
He paints them on the window pane,
In fairy lines with frozen steam;
And when you wake you see again
The lovely things you saw in dream.
Back to top
The Crows
What a famous noise there was
In the morning when I rose!
All the air was hoarse with 'Caws,'
And the sky was black with crows.
Hundreds circling round the trees
Swooped down on a last year's nest,
Rose and scattered then like bees,
Swarmed again and could not rest;
Cawing, cawing all the time;
Till it grew to one great voice,
And you could not hear the chime
Of the school-clock for the noise.
Every garden bush has heard,
Through its tiny twigs and shoots;
And the trees have all been stirred
Right down to their very roots.
Buds of green on ranch and stem
Glisten in the morning sun;
For the crows have wakened them,
And they open one by one.
On the hill, last night, there lay
One white patch from winter-snows.
Now it’s melted clean away
With the cawing of the crows.
And a primrose, too, has heard,
Peeping out to nod and talk,
From the hedge-roots to a bird,
Hopping down the garden walk.
What a funny noise it was!
To make the trees and bushes hear,
And fields and flowers and leaves, because
The merry time of spring is near.
Back to top
Santa Claus
In Spring the sun shines clear and bright
And calls us out to run and play,
For, though the winds are cold at night,
The steaming ground is warm all day.
When Summer brings the birds and bees,
And flowers wave o'er all the land,
We want to play among the trees
Or dig for sand-eels in the sand.
In Autumn, when the golden sheaves
Are ranked about the fields in scores,
And ruddy tints are on the leaves,
You do not wish to stay indoors.
But when the birds and bees are dumb
And Jack Frost stills the bubbling brooks,
It's then that Santa Claus will come
And bring you lots of toys and books.
Is it not kind of Santa Claus,
To think of little girls and boys
When winter nights are long, because
That's just the time they wish for toys?
Back to top
Lullaby
Hush-a-bye, baby, hush-a-bye, ba!
Cooing one, cooing one, rest.
The round sun's already asleep in his beddie
And dreaming a dream of the West.
Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, ba!
Comfy and cosy,
Backie and bosie,
Till morning, sweet morning, ta ta!
Hush-a-bye, baby, hush-a-bye, ba!
Blinking one, winking one, rest.
The gloaming is falling and curfew is calling
The little birds home to their nest,
Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, ba!
Comfy and cosy,
Feetie and toesie,
Till morning, bright morning, ta ta!
Hush-a-bye, baby, hush-a-bye, ba!
Smile you now, while you now sleep.
The starries are twinkling above you, and sprinkling
Baby stars down on the deep.
Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, ba!
Comfy and cosy,
Eyesey and nosey,
Till
