"Arabian Serenade" is a poem written by Margery Lawrence

Margery Lawrence

Margery Lawrence was an English Fantasy fiction, Horror fiction and detective fiction author who specialized in ghost stories....

 and set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar

Edward Elgar

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...

 in 1914.

The poem is from "Songs of Childhood and other Verses" by Margery Lawrence, published by Grant Richards, Ltd.

This is one of Elgar's finest songs. In it he uses the Phrygian mode

Phrygian mode

The Phrygian mode can refer to three different musical modes: the ancient Greek tonos or harmonia sometimes called Phrygian, formed on a particular set octave species or scales; the Medieval Phrygian mode, and the modern conception of the Phrygian mode as a diatonic scale, based on the latter...

, which is popular in Arabian music.

Lyrics

The repetition of certain words and phrases in the song is not shown.

ARABIAN SERENADE

The silver silence of the night has spun

A web of glamour o'er the purple sea.

The Watcher of the Sky has lit his lamp, -

Waken, my white one; come thou forth with me.

We will go softly through the shining meadows,

Setting our faces to the distant moon;

Drenching our feet in pureness, and our souls

Drenched in the sweetness of the bulbul

Bulbul

Bulbuls are a family, Pycnonotidae, of medium-sized passerine songbirds. Many forest species are known as greenbuls. The family is distributed across most of Africa and into the Middle East, tropical Asia to Indonesia, and north as far as Japan. A few insular species occur on the tropical islands...

's tune.

Come forth, O maid, the Feast is well prepared.

Between the dim wood and the purple sea

The world hangs breathless and the stars look down.

Waken, Zareiba; come thou forth with me.

Recordings

• Songs and Piano Music by Edward Elgar has "Arabian Serenade" performed by Peter Savidge (baritone), with David Owen Norris (piano).

• The Songs of Edward Elgar SOMM CD 220 Christopher Maltman (baritone) with Malcolm Martineau (piano), at Southlands College, London, April 1999