"Swinging on the Garden Gate" (1875)
Song & Chorus
[Ballad, with Chorus ad lib.]
Words by George Cooper, 1840-1927
Music by John Rogers Thomas, 1830-1896

New York: J. L. Peters
St. Louis: T. A. Boyle
Cincinnati: Dobmeyer & Newhall
San Francisco & Portland: M. Gray
Detroit: C. J. Whitney & Co.
Quebec: R. Morgan
Lithographed by Endicott & Co.
Plate No. 10,642-4.
[Source: @NYPL]

1. Do you still remember, love, 
Merry times of long ago? 
When our skies were fair above, 
Radiant with the summer’s glow? 
We were happy playmates then, 
Both our hearts with joy elate; 
I was twelve and you were ten,— 
Swinging on the garden gate.

CHORUS ad lib. [sung after each verse]
Oh, that happy, happy time, 
When we lingered long and late, 
Singing o’er some childish rhyme, 
Swinging on the garden gate. 
Swinging, swinging, 
Swinging on the garden gate, 
Swinging, swinging, 
Swinging on the garden gate.

2. How we wandered by the brook, 
Coming home from school each day; 
How we search’d in ev’ry nook 
Where the daisies hid away; 
But the sweetest joys of all, 
Ere the antumn days grow late, 
Were the hours that I recall, 
Swinging on the garden gate.

3. Many years have come and gone 
Since the days of youth were ours; 
Still in life we journey on, 
Sharing all its thorns and flow’rs; 
Tho’ your hair is growing white, 
You are dearer to me, Kate, 
Dearer than in days so bright, 
Swinging on the garden gate.