'Tango-Pasodoblé'

from Façade

General Information – Performing Forces – Manuscript – Publication – Arrangements – Recordings – Text

General Information:

Text:
Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)
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Performing Forces:

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Text:

When
                                Don
Pasquito arrived at the seaside
Where the donkey's hide tide brayed, he
Saw the banditto Jo in a black cape
Whose slack shape waved like the sea —
Thetis wrote a treatise noting wheat is silver like the sea;
The lovely chat is sweet as foam; Erotis notices that she
                                                    Will
                                                    Steal
                                                    The
Wheat-king's luggage, like Babel
Before the League of Nations grew —
So Jo put the luggage and the label
In the pocket of Flo the Kangaroo.
Through trees like rich hotels that bode
Of dreamless ease fled she,
Carrying the load and goading the road
Through the marine scene to the sea.
'Don Pasquito, the road is eloping
With your luggage, though heavy and large;
You must follow and leave your moping
Bride to my guidance and charge!'

When
                                Don
Pasquito returned from the road's end,
Where vanilla-coloured ladies ride
From Sevilla, his mantilla'd bride and young friend
Were forgetting their mentor and guide.
For the lady and her friend from Le Touquet
In the very shady trees upon the sand
Were plucking a white satin bouquet
Of foam, while the sand's brassy band
Blared in the wind. Don Pasquito
Hid where the leaves drip with sweet…
But a word stung him like a mosquito…
For what they hear, they repeat!

— Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)

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