LONG steel grass -- The white soldiers pass -- The light is braying like an ass. See The tall Spanish jade With hair black as nightshade Worn as a cockade! Flee Her eyes' gasconade And her gown's parade (As stiff as a brigade). Tee-hee! The hard and braying light Is zebra'd black and white It will take away the slight And free, Tinge of the mouth-organ sound, (Oyster-stall notes) oozing round Her flounces as they sweep the ground. The Trumpet and the drum And the martial cornet come To make the people dumb -- But we Won't wait for sly-foot night (Moonlight, watered milk-white, bright) To make clear the declaration Of our Paphian vocation, Beside the castanetted sea, Where stalks Il Capitaneo Swaggart braggadocio Sword and moustachio -- He Is green as a cassada And his hair is an armada. To the jade "Come kiss me harder" He called across the battlements as she Heard our voices thin and shrill As the steely grasses' thrill, Or the sound of the onycha When the phoca has the pica In the palace of the Queen Chinee! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MANHATTAN, 1609 by EDWIN MARKHAM A BALLAD OF WHITECHAPEL by ISAAC ROSENBERG THE ENGLISH GRAVEYARD IN MALACCA by KAREN SWENSON THE BOYS by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE SHADOW DANCE by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 119 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI TO DR. AIKIN by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |