I Wonder Whether (from Oh, My Dear! 1918)

Vocal Range

Comments

One of Hirsch's most beautiful settings, of a marvelous Wodehouse lyric.

Lyrics

Just as soon as you came in through that door,
Something told me that we had met before:
I’m sincere, though it may sound queer,
And you’ll laugh, I fear, when I say,
I love you— yes, indeed, I do,
Though I only met you today:

I wonder whether
we were together
In some existence
Lost in the distance.
Why, Julius Caesar or his father or his mother
May have introduced us to each other!
Ah! could but we see
The time that’s B. C.
You’d know you’d met me
Though you forget me.
And now you see we’ve simply met again:
If that’s not so, I can’t explain
Why I should feel I’ve loved you all my life.

I’m not laughing, for I felt just the same.
Long before I had even learned your name:
My heart stirred like a waking bird;
For it seems absurd but it’s true,
I’d known some day that you would come,
So I simply said why, it’s you.

I wonder whether
we were together
At different stages
Right through the ages.
For all we know, I may with ecstasy have fainted
When Cleopatra bade us “Get acquainted!”
Time draws a curtain;
One can’t be certain,
But some have stated
These things are fated.
We only met this afternoon, you see,
And yet you say that you love me,
While I just feel I’ve loved you all my life.