Bank Holiday (Sitwell, set by W. Walton) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


I

The houses on a seesaw rush
In the giddy sun's hard spectrum, push

The noisy heat's machinery;
Like flags of colored heat they fly.

The wooden ripples of the smiles
Suck down the houses, then at whiles,

Grown suctioned like an octopus,
They throw them up against us,

As we rush by on coloured bars
Of sense, vibrating flower-hued stars,

With lips like velvet drinks and winds
That bring strange Peris to our minds.

II

Seas are roaring like a lion; with their
Wavy flocks Zion,
Noses like a scimitar,
Hair a brassy bar
Come
to
The sun's drum. Though
Light green water's swim their
daughters, lashing
with their eel-sleek-locks
The furred
Heads
Of mermaids that occurred,
Sinking to the cheap beds.
Blurred
Legs, like trunks of tropical
Plants, rise up and, over all.
Green as a conservatory
Is the light..........another story..........
It has grown too late for life!
Put on your gloves and take a drive!

First published in Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany, June 1920, revised same year

Input by Dan Eggleston

Authorship

Edith Sitwell (1887-1964)

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Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

William Walton (1902-1983)

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Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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