Saturday, May 28, 2005
I was just listening to The Decemberists' Picaresque and was moved to post the lyrics which follow. Perhaps they will even inspire someone to check out The Decemberists who hasn't yet done so; no dren, this band is keeping me vaguely sane lately, and surely that counts as a good recommendation. Also, we have finally added an uncorrected ARC of To Charles Fort, With Love to our eBay auctions.
"The Infanta" (The Decemberists)
Here she comes in her palanquin on the back of an elephant,
on a bed made of linen and sequins and silk.
All astride on her father's line
with the king and his concubines
and her nurse with her pitchers of liquors and milk.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
Among five-score pachyderm, each canopied and passengered,
sit the duke and the duchess's luscious young girls,
within sight of the baroness (seething spite
for this live largess,) by her side
sits the baron. Her barrenness barbs her.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
A phalanx on camelback, thirty ranks
on her forward tack follow close,
their shiny bright standards a'waving.
While behind, in their coaching fours, ride the wives of the king of Moors
and the veiled young virgin, the prince's betrothed.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And as she sits upon her place, her innocence laid on her face,
from all atop the parapets blow a multitude of coronets,
melodies rhapsodical and fair.
And all our hearts afire, the sky ablaze with cannonfire,
we all raise our voices to the air, to the air...
And above all this falderal, on a bed made of chaparral,
she is laid, a coronal placed on her brow.
And the babe, all in slumbered dreams
of a place filled with quiet screams,
and the lake where her cradle was pulled from the water.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
2:18 PM
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