Added to the original “Babes in Toyland”, 1903.
Words by Glen MacDonough.
Music by Victor Herbert.
The sheet music:
Lyrics
- Now once upon a time a poet wrote
A song about a baby in a tree,
Where up in the branches high,
A tender lullaby,
Was a warbled by the breezes blowing free
That little song went all the world around,
But the poet never heard it till one day
While in London on a lark,
A nursemaid in a park,
Sang it to a naughty infant in this way:
Chorus (in Cockney accent)
Rockabye baby in the treetop –
“I shall certainly slap you in a moment”
When the wind blows the cradle will rock –
“Wherever is your bottle? ‘Ave you swallowed it?”
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall –
“Good evenik, Sargent!”
Down comes the cradle and baby and all –
“There you gow! Out of the perambulator again!
And a course you ‘ad to fall on your face! Nasty brat!”
- The poet thought that he the world would see,
In search of both experience and fame,
So he took his stick and grip,
And skipped upon a ship,
And thus to the great United States he came
One ev’ning he had nothing else to do,
So he chanced into a music hall to stray,
Where the leader of a band,
Quite famous in the land,
Played the poet’s well-known lullaby this way:
Chorus (Tempo di Marcia)
Rockabye baby in the treetop,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
Down comes the cradle and baby and all.
- Once more across the waves the poet went,
A time to spend in sunny Italy,
There a visit he did plan to musical Milan,
Very celebrated home of melody
Of music he set out to get his fill,
And again he heard a noted leader play
‘Twas his lullaby sublime,
But changed around the time,
For in Italy they treated it this way:
Chorus (ala Giuseppe Creatore)
Rockbye baby in treetop
When the wind blows cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks cradle fall
Ah down, ah down, come cradle babe and all
Rockabye baby bye, bye
- It happened that the poet chanced to pay
A visit to the fair and sunny South,
Where the sweet magnolias grow,
And Tropic breezes blow,
And the ‘gators lark about the river’s mouth
‘Twas there a cullud mammy that he met
Who had likewise heard the poet’s famous song,
And she struggled all the day
To learn it in a way
But the way in which she learned it was all wrong:
Chorus (Tempo di Cakewalk)
Rockabye baby mah baby mine
Swinging up thar in the top o’ the pine
An’ if yo come a tumblin’ to the groun’
Yo mammy’ll kotch you on the way down.
Sung here by Hugh Panaro, London Voices, London Sinfonietta – Conductor, John McGlinn: