Lyr Req: The Orange Tree

Subject: The Orange Tree
From: Will
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 10:07 PM

Does anyone have the lyrics of this most unusual Orange song ? Or can anyone point me in the direction of a recording of it ?I know bits and piesces of it from I was a youngster, but have lost most of it. Thaks, Will

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Helen
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 01:43 AM

Will,

Can you post some of the lyrics so that we can identify it more easily.

There is an Australian song based on a poem by John Shaw Neilson called The Orange Tree but I'd be surprised if this is the one you are talking about.

I've got the words in a book somewhere, but since I moved house I can't find 3/4 of my books - they are all here somewhere but not in the same old places on the bookshelves that they used to be. If you think it's the right one I'll hunt it out. It's about a child in an orange tree being questioned by an adult. She ends up saying "Hush, I'm listening like the orange tree"

Helen

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Wolfgang
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 02:47 AM

Will, could it be The Old Orange Tree from The Ulster Orange/Unionist/Loyalist~Songbook?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: *Conrad Bladey Peasant-Inactive
Date: 14 Jul 00 - 04:08 PM

A good old song too! To learn the truth about the orange order go here -a comprehensive survey concerning tradition and celebration and song http://www.bcpl.net/~cbladey/orange.html

Conrad

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 15 Jul 00 - 07:41 AM

in the new Northern Ireland there is room for both our traditions and room for mutual respect between both our communities
nice line from that website so how about a little respect from now on
I am going off Oranges
Lemons are less bitter

Roger

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: GUEST,Henry
Date: 15 Jul 00 - 09:26 AM

That's the one - with minor variations - that I learned as a child from recordings of the late great Richard Hayward. My father's house was nothing if not catholic in its musical tastes.:-)But Henry

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jul 00 - 01:43 PM

.....to quote a musician in a concert...

"you don't have to believe EVERYTHING you sing"...some songs are just good songs, no matter what your politics are

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 15 Jul 00 - 03:01 PM

never looked at the dates on these posts before. Helen really is in a different time zone. Did you find that song Helen sounds interesting.

Roger

Subject: Lyr Add: THE ORANGE TREE (John Shaw Neilson)
From: Stewie
Date: 15 Jul 00 - 08:54 PM

Roger, in case Helen does not find her copy, here is the text of John Shaw Neilson's lovely poem. Richard Keam did an album, setting 13 of Neilson's poems to music: Richard Keam 'On the one string: Songs from the verse of Australia's "navvy" poet' Talunga Music TMS 011. However, it does not include 'Orange Tree'. Martyn Wyndham-Read also set a number of Neilson poems to music, perhaps including the 'Orange Tree'. I do have a recording of it, though, set to music by Cathie O'Sullivan on Cathie O'Sullivan with Cleis Pearce 'High Places' Larrikin LRF-128. Enjoy:

THE ORANGE TREE
(John Shaw Neilson)

The young girl stood beside me. I
Saw not what her young eyes could see;
-A light, she said, not of the sky
Lives somewhere in the orange tree

-Is it, I said, of east or west?
The heartbeat of a luminous boy
Who with his faltering flute confessed
Only the edges of his joy?

Was he, I said, borne to the blue
In a mad escapade of Spring
Ere he could make a fond adieu
To his love in the blossoming?

-Listen! the young girl said. There calls
No voice, no music beats on me:
But it is almost sound: it falls
This evening on the orange tree

-Does he, I said, so fear the Spring
Ere the white sap too far can climb?
See in the full gold evening
All happenings of the olden time?

Is he so goaded by the green?
Does the compulsion of the dew
Make him unknowable but keen
Asking with beauty of the blue?

-Listen! the young girl said. For all
Your hapless talk you fail to see
There is a light, a step, a call
This evening on the orange tree

-Is it, I said, a waste of love
Imperishably old in pain,
Moving as an afrighted dove
Under the sunlight or the rain?

Is it a fluttering heart that gave
Too willingly and was reviled?
Is it the stammering at the grave,
The last word of a little child?

-Silence! the young girl said. Oh why,
Why will you talk to weary me?
Plague me no longer now, for I
Am listening like the orange tree

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Helen
Date: 16 Jul 00 - 01:35 AM

Thanks, Stewie. I did find the book but fogot all about posting the words here.

I haven't heard the albums by richard Keam or Martyn Wyndham-Read but I have to confess I really don't like Cathie O'Sullivan's version.

Roger, my time zone is -10 hours from Greenwich Meridien, and about 14 hours before Mudcat time, I think.

Helen

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 16 Jul 00 - 04:52 AM

Thanks for that Stewie. A very interesting poem . When was it written, I am assuming that John Shaw Neilson is no longer alive?.
Sorry Helen I only meant that when this post appeared on my screen yesterday I assumed (wrongly) that it was new. Later I noticed that it had been pending for seven months hence ...different time zone.

Roger

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Stewie
Date: 16 Jul 00 - 09:46 AM

Hi Roger, Neilson was born in 1872 and died in 1942. Evidently, he began writing verses as a youngster and continued for many years, but it is not possible to determine the composition date of many of his important poems. An incomplete collection of his poems was first published in 1934.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 01:10 AM

Oldpoetry.com dates the poem 1919.
The Orange Tree
No source given. The website places it in the Childrens category.

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 26 Aug 05 - 05:31 AM

A little confused here, why are some of the postings in this thread out of chronological sequence?

---

We had a crash several weeks ago, Brian, and it resequenced our message numbering system.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: The Orange Tree
From: GUEST,William in Ulster
Date: 09 Feb 08 - 10:46 AM

The Orange Tree version about the Orange Order is a much better song than that Aussie poem of the same Title.

Keep it Orange