Valse.

Valse

Daisy and Lily,
Lazy and silly,
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea,-
Talking once more 'neath a swan-
bosomed tree.
Rose castles
Tourelles
Those bustles
Where swells
Each foam-bell of ermine
They roam and determine
What fashions have been and what
fashions will be,-
What tartan leaves born,
What Crinolines worn.

By Queen Thetis,
Pelisses
Of tarlatine blue,
Like the thin Plaided leaves that the
Castle crags grew,
Or velours d'Afrande:
On the water-god's land
Her hair seemed gold trees on the
honey-cell sand
When the thickest gold spangles,
on deep water seen,
Were like twanging guitar and like
cold mandoline,
And the nymphs of great caves,
With hair like gold waves,
Of Venus, wore tarlatine
Louise and Charlottine
(Borea's daughters)
And the nymphs of deep waters,
The nymph Taglioni, Grisi the ondine
Wear Plaided Victoria and thin
Clementine
Like the crinolined waterfalls;
Wood-nymphs wear bonnets,
shawls,
Elegant parasols
Floating are seen.
The Amazones wear balzarine of
jonquille

Besides the blond lace of a deep-
falling rill;
Through glades like a nun
They run from and shun
The enormous and gold-rayed
rustling sun;
And the nymphs of the fountains
Descend from the mountains
Like elegant willows
On their deep barouche pillows,
In cashmere Alvandar, barege Isabelle
Like bells of bright water from
clearest wood-well.
Our elegantes favouring
bonnets of blond,
The stars in their apiaries,
Sylphs in their aviaries,
Seeing them, spangle these,
and the sylphs fond
From their aviaries fanned
With each long fluid hand
The manteaux espagnoles,
Mimic the waterfalls
Over the long and the light summer land.
...
So Daisy and Lily,
Lazy and silly
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy Sea,
Talking once more 'neath a swan-
bosomed tree.
Row Castles,
Tourelles,
Those bustles!
Mourelles
Of their shade in their train follow.
Ladies, how vain, - hollow, -
Gone is the sweet swallow, -
Gone, Philomel!"


~Edith Sitwell

Art by Patrick Woodroffe.