Romance 1926 Romberg - The Desert Song

by James Pitt-Payne, London UK - 11 Oct 2006
2006

Romance,
a playboy who is born each Spring
to teach the nightingale to sing
a very pretty song:
"I Love You."
Romance,
a legend on an old brocade,
a prince who tells a country maid:
"I Love You."
Now where this whimsy comes from,
I don't know:
For when it comes it's just about to go.
Romance,
a flower that will bloom awhile
with sunshine from a lover's smile,
that lover's tears bedew!
Ah!

Yet, when I seek this beauty,
flower of youth's first dawning,
I find a prosy workaday world
stretching and yawning!
Love is locked up in cages,
kept for a poet's pages;
life and adventure don't seem to be
paying attention to me!
And so I dream of fair romance
and let my fancies
weave pretty stories.
And tho' I know they are not so,
I like to go wand'ring
amid their wistful glories.

My Princes become what I mould them,
and they stay for the breath of a sigh!
I open my arms to enfold them,
and they're gone like a breeze rushing by.
Ah, this is a humdrum world,
but when I dream I set it dancing
when life is grey,
I have a way to keep it gay,
passing the time of day with love.

Soft karaoke
Words
piano
piano
piano
piano
*
Romance 1926 Romberg
From "The Desert Song"
Music by Sigmund Romberg
Lyrics by Otto Harbach & Oscar Hammerstein II
© MCMXXVI by Harms Inc. by arranghement with
M.Witmark & Sons.
*
sequence & karaoke by James Pitt-Payne, London UK
on Wednesday 11 October 2006 at 10.43am
in association with Doug Grierson
*