"Here In My Arms" (Sidney Burchall, 1931)
Rodgers & Hart used this song in two shows--1925's "Dearest Enemy" and again, in "Lido Lady" (1926). Baritone Sidney Burchall performs from the 1931 Australian cast:
HERE IN MY ARMS
I know a pleasant place,
You'll find it's true, dear.
It's just the very place
And it's quite new, dear.
There you can while away
Days as you smile away
It's not a mile away,
And it waits for you...
Here in my arms it's adorable!
It's deplorable
that you were never there.
When little lips are so kissable
it's permissible
for my to ask my share.
Next to my heart is ever so lonely,
I'm holding only air,
while here is my arms it's adorable!
It's deplorable
that you where never there.
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The show's setting was New York, during the American Revolution--here's the plot synopsis from LorenzHart.Org:
The setting is the American Revolution-era "forests of Manhattan," at that point a burg far overshadowed by Philadelphia and the like. Menfolk are away fighting the Brits; Mrs. Robert Murray (Lois Saunders) leads the homefront sewing circle, but her younger, more hormonally oriented charges can't hardly stitch for thinking about those absent boys, boys, boys. It's mixed good fortune, then, that a group of British officers turns up to commandeer the house as its temporary headquarters. "Hooray! We're gonna be compromised," the girls enthuse. At first "beating a maidenly retreat," they all learn to flirt for freedom's sake when it turns out Yankee generals Washington and Putnam need the redcoats detained overnight so rebel forces can secretly gather. This subterfuge creates a wee dilemma for Mrs. Murray's niece, Betsy , who wants the colonies freed almost as much as she wants wooing from "enemy" Sir John Copeland .