by Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941)
Cuisine Provençale
Language: English
At that instant a maid came in carrying a great dish. "Put it down there", Mrs. Ramsey said, helping the Swiss girl to put gently before her the huge brown pot in which was the Boeuf-en-Daube. An exquisite scent of olives and oil and juice rose as Marthe, with a little flourish, took the cover off. Mrs. Ramsey peered into the dish, with its shiny walls and its confusion of sav'ry brown and yellow meats, and its bay leaves and its wine, and said, speaking with great pleasure in her voice "It is a French recipe of my grandmother's." She waited. Her husband spoke. He was repeating something and she knew it was poetry from the rhythm and the ring of exultation and melancholy in his voice: Come out and climb the garden path Luriana, Lurilee The China rose is all abloom and buzzing with the yellow bee.* She did not know what they meant, but, like music, the words seemed to be spoken by her own voice. Come out and climb the garden path Luriana, Lurilee To see the Kings go riding by Over lawn and daisy lea With their palm leaves and cedar Luriana, Lurilee, Luriana, Lurilee He turned slightly towards her repeating the last words: "Luriana, Lurilee, Luriana, Lurilee" and bowed to her as if he did her homage.
Note: contains a misquotation of a poem by Charles Elton (1839-1900), first and fourth stanzas
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
Authorship:
- by Virginia Woolf (1882 - 1941) [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Geoffrey Bush (1920 - 1998), "Cuisine Provençale" [text verified 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 27
Word count: 222