Long Steel Grass by William Walton Lyrics

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
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 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 Capitano
Swaggart braggadocio
Sword and mustachio
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