Monday 2 August 2010

"In a borealic iceberg came Victoria..."


If any of you have ever wondered where Siobhan's crazy spoken lyrics come from in 'I Don't Care', have a look at the poem below by Dame Edith Sitwell called 'Hornpipe':

Sailor come
To the drum
Out of Babylon;
Hobby-horses
Foam, the dumb
Sky rhinoceros glum

Watched the courses of the breakers' rocking-horses and with Glaucis,
Lady Venus on the settee of the horsehair sea!
Where Lord Tennyson in laurels wore a gloria free,
In a borealic iceberg came Victoria; she
Knew Prince Albert's tall memorial took the colours of the floreal
And the borealic iceberg; floating on they see
New-arisen Madam Venus for whose sake from far
Came the fat and zebra'd emperor from Zanzibar
Where like golden bouquets lay far Asia, Africa, Cathay,
All laid before that shady lady by the fibroid Shah.
Captain Fracasse stout as any water-butt came, stood
With Sir Bacchus both a-drinking the black tarr'd grapes' blood
Plucked among the tartan leafage
By the furry wind whose grief age
Could not wither — like a squirrel with a gold star-nut.
Queen Victoria sitting shocked upon the rocking horse
Of a wave said to the Laureate, 'This minx of course
Is as sharp as any lynx and blacker-deeper than the drinks and quite as
Hot as any hottentot, without remose!

For the minx',
Said she,
'And the drinks,
You can see
Are hot as any hottentot and not the goods for me!'

— Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)


How I'd love to hear Siobhan recite the whole thing!!!

2 comments:

  1. Magnificent! I wondered where that little monologue came from, but in the days before Google, there was never a way to find out! Thanks for taking the trouble to post the original poem-- though I seem to have no idea whatever what it's about!

    Vivienne.

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  2. Thanks for that. I've been idly wondering about that weird bit of the song for the past 28 years.

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