Facade Texts

SJWS Program 03-07-2004

POPULAR SONG
Lily O’Grady,
Silly and shady,
Longing to be
A lazy lady,
Walked by the cupolas, gables in the
Lake’s Georgian stables,
In a fairy tale like the heat intense,
And the mist in the woods when across the fence
The children gathering strawberries
Are changed by the heat into negresses,
Though their fair hair
Shines there
Like gold-haired planets, Calliope, Jo,
Pomona, Antiope, Echo, and Clio.
Then Lily O’Grady,
Silly and shady,
Sauntered along like a
Lazy lady;
Beside the waves’ haycocks her gown with tucks
Was of satin the colour of shining green ducks,
And her fol-de-rol
Parasol
Was a great gold sun o’er the haycocks shining,
But she was a negress black as the shade
That time on the brightest lady laid.
Then a satyr, dog-haired as trunks of trees,
Began to flatter, began to tease,
And she ran like the nymphs with golden foot
That trampled the strawberry, buttercup root,
In the thick gold dew as bright as the mesh
Of dead Panope’s golden flesh,
Made from the music whence were born
Memphis and Thebes in the first hot morn,
— And ran, to wake
In the lake,
Where the water-ripples seem hay to rake,
And Charlottine,
Adeline,
Round rose-bubbling Victorine,
And the other fish
Express a wish
For mastic mantles and gowns with a swish;
And bright and slight as the posies
Of buttercups and of roses,
And buds of the wild-wood lilies
They chase her, as frisky as fillies.
The red retriever-haired satyr
Can whine and tease her and flatter,
But Lily O’Grady,
Silly and shady,
In the deep shade is a lazy lady;
Now Pompey’s dead, Homer’s read,
Heliogabalus lost his head,
And shade is on the brightest wing,
And dust forbids the bird to sing.

POLKA
“ ‘Tra la la la —
See me dance the polka,’
Said Mr. Wagg like a bear,
‘With my top hat
And my whiskers that —
(Tra la la la) trap the fair.

Where the waves seem chiming haycocks
I dance the polka; there
Stand Venus’ children in their gay frocks, —
Maroon and marine, — and stare

To see me fire my pistol
Through the distance blue as my coat;
Like Wellington, Byron, the Marquis of Bristol,
Buzbied great trees float.
Where the wheezing hurdy-gurdy
Of the marine wind blows me
To the tune of Annie Rooney, sturdy,
Over the sheafs of the sea;

And bright as a seedman’s packet
With zinnias, candytufts chill,
Is Mrs. Marigold’s jacket
As she gapes at the inn door still,

Where at dawn in the box of the sailor,
Blue as the decks of the sea,
Nelson awoke, crowed like the cocks,
Then back to the dust sank he.

And Robinson Crusoe
Rues so
The bright and foxy beer, —
But he finds fresh isles in a negress’ smiles, —
(The poxy doxy dear,)

As they watch me dance the polka,’
Said Mr. Wagg, like a bear,
‘In my top hat and my whiskers that, —
Tra la la la, trap the fair.

Tra la la la la, la,
Tra la la la la, la,
Tra la la la la la la la
La
La
La!”