The Infanta - The Decemberists

Here she comes in her palanquin on the back of an elephant
on a bed made of linen and sequins and silk.
All astride on her father's line
with the king and his concubines
and her nurse with her pitchers of liquors and milk.

And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.

Among five-score pachyderm, each canapied and passengered,
sit the duke and the duchess's luscious young girls
within sight of the baroness (seething spite
for this live largess,) by her side
sits the baron. Her barrenness barbs her.

And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.

A phalanx on camelback, thirty ranks
on her forward tack follow close,
their shiny bright standards a'waving.
While behind, in their coaching fours, ride the wives of the king of Moors
and the veiled young virgin, the prince's betrothed.

And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.

And as she sits upon her place, her innocence laid on her face.
From all atop the parapets blow a multitude of coronets:
melodies rhapsodical and fair.
And all our hearts afire, the sky ablaze with cannonfire,
we all raise our voices to the air, to the air...

And above all this falderal on a bed made of chaparral
she is laid, a coronal placed on her brow.
And the babe, all in slumbered dreams
of a place filled with quiet screams
and the lake where her cradle was pulled from the water.

And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.
And we'll all come praise the infanta.

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