# The Land of Long Ago

- Music: Ellen Dickson (died 1878)
- Words: Thomas Westwood (died 1888)
- Licence of the score: CC0 1.0
- Credit: OpenScore Lieder Corpus (CC0)
- Source: https://musescore.com/openscore-lieder-corpus/scores/6600932

## The words

Do you ask me, little people, Where I find my  
songs and ditties? Oh, it’s far from tow’r and  
steeple, Far from fields, and far from cities;  
Ay, so very far that never, Though your feet  
were like the wind, Could you reach the place  
for ever Out of sight, and out of mind Wait,  
my children, time will show it, Through the  
gloom of years ’twill grow, Clear to all your  
eyes–– You’ll know it As the land of Long ago.  
You may laugh, my little people,  
But be sure my story’s true, For I vow,  
by yon church steeple, I was once a child like  
you; Just as frisky in the wildwood,  
Just as nimble in the race; But I lost my happy  
childhood; Do you ask in what strange place,  
In what darksome lanes and alleys,  
It slipp’d from me? you shall know;  
It was in the dewy valleys Of the Land of Long  
a– go.  

Now the portal closes, closes,  
And the darkness walls it round,  
Leaving childhood by the roses,  
Age upon the flinty ground: Nay,  
my children, not in sadness, Nor reproach,  
these words I say; God is good, and gives new  
gladness, When the old He takes away But where  
all my songs and ditties I go seeking,  
now you know; Far from fields, and far from  
cities, In the Land of Long a– go.  

Songs to sing here are made from public-domain scores: the OpenScore Lieder Corpus (CC0), the Mutopia Project (each score's licence as Mutopia states it) and the scores in Japanese Wikipedia's articles (CC BY-SA 4.0, by each article's contributors); dates and first publications as IMSLP, the LiederNet Archive, Mutopia and Wikidata state them. Karaoke videos play in YouTube's player; live channels from the iptv-org database on their own pages; stations from Radio Browser. The piano is the Salamander Grand Piano by Alexander Holm (CC BY 3.0).