TESTO DEL LIED

"Tango - Pasodoble"
di Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)

When
Don
Pasquito arrived at the seaside
Where the donkey's hide tide
brayed, he
Saw the bandito Jo in a black cape
Whose slack shape waved like the sea -
Thetis wrote a treatise noting wheat
is silver like the sea;
the lovely cheat is sweet as foam;
Erotis notices that she
Will
Steal
The
Wheat-kings luggage, like Babel
Before the League of Nations grew -
So Jo put the luggage and the label
In the pocket of Flo the Kangaroo.
Through trees like rich hotels that bode
Of dreamless ease fled she,
Carrying the load and goading the road
Through the marine scene to the sea.
"Don Pasquito, the road is eloping
With your luggage
though heavy and large;
You must follow and leave your moping
Bride to my guidance and charge!"
When
Don
Pasquito returned
from the road's end,
Where vanilla-coloured ladies ride
From Sevilla, his mantilla'd bride
and young friend
Were forgetting
their mentor and guide.
For the lady and her friend
from Le Touquet
In the very shady trees on the sand
Were plucking a white satin bouquet
Of foam, while the sand's brassy band
Blared in the wind.
Don Pasquito
Hid where the leaves drip with
sweet...
But a word stung him like a
mosquito...
For what they hear, they repeat!