From My Little Nature Book With My Very Own Pictures by H. G. C. Marsh Lambert, 1930. You can read a little about the artist/writer of this book here.
Come Little Leaves
“Come, little leaves,” said the wind one day,
“Come over the meadows with me, and play;
Put on your dresses of red and gold;
Summer is gone, and the days grow cold.”
Soon as the leaves heard the wind’s loud call,
Down they came fluttering, one and all;
Over the brown fields they danced and flew,
Singing the soft little songs they knew.
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These verses came from our friend Virginia Gambardella this morning. I hadn’t heard from her in a while as she’s been mired these past months in relocating from her home of many years. Her letter joked about digging out of her latest “decoration” of packing boxes and bags. Still, she found the time to connect, to send a few words about Halloweens past, and this very charming song. “I can remember my mother singing it to me when I was a small child,” wrote Virginia, adding that her mother said she sang the song in school when she was a small girl.
I looked up Come Little Leaves and found a much longer version that connects to our rural past with lines about lambs, vales, and fields. It was written by the American poet George Cooper (1838–1927) with music by Thomas J. Crawford. Virginia gave it a date of 1903, but through a little research I found it in a educational publication called The Michigan School Monitor in 1889.
—S. K.
* * *
Virginia Gambardella lives in New York. She has one son, three grandchildren, and enjoys the following: people, holidays, antiques, nature, gardening, fishing, decorating, fashion, sharing knowledge, cooking, and baking. She’s a cancer survivor, a pancreatitis survivor, a widow, and the re-inventor of her life, “as necessary.”
florasforum 