During the time when this song was written, Arab culture was fashionable. Burton's translation of the Arabian Nights and the Fitgerald translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat were immensely popular. (Munro, who took the pen name Saki as yet another tribute to this, has one character dejectedly exclaim about his Christmas gifts that it would appear his acqaintances all believe he is collecting cheap editions of Khayyam.) Lehmann capitalized on this fashion by writing her In a Persian Garden, of which this is the best known song. She sets it with a very careful, semi-exotic style that is far less Arabic than it is simply non-English, just enough that the music sounds "different, " not enough to turn away the listeners who want to hear something exotic but still pleasing to their English, middle-brow aesthetics.

A rushing phrase, repeated three times in the accompaniment as an introduction, seems like a quick curtain-raiser. The text is set in a half-melodic, half-declamatory style with occasional unexpected arching runs, often on syllables that would not ordinarily be ornamented, setting the "Persian" atmosphere in a faint imitation of Arabic music. The result is strangely appealing, despite its "synthetic" quality—there is a certain charm to the naive exoticism and the graceful writing.

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