Once a young knight left his home
Seeking promised lands from dust-bound tomes
To ride and bring back gold and shine
For his bonny bride, for his bonny bride,
So he left, and travelled far.

On the lip of a lapping lilac sea
He found a white shelled-boat with a listing lee
So he sailed through curling waves of foam
So far from home, so far from home,
He sailed and travelled far.

At length he reached a sulfur shore
Where strange birds sang and ate and tore
The blue-faced lizards with limbs like fans
And his boots sank into the sulfur sand
With a hiss like a serpent’s tongue.

Oh, what a strange and wondrous land,
What a strange and wondrous land.

So he travelled far to a whispering plain
With grasses that danced and sang of pain
For their needle-edges did cut and slice
And there were cats that played with the safron mice
And his sword was a blunt strip of lead.

In the sky at night great bodies moved
In the light of the moon, in the light of the moon,
And a soft rain murmured of long lost times
Of children and fairies and silver-sweet rhymes
And his eyes looked on spirals of sound.

At last he came to a forest deep
And so lay down in the shade to sleep
Where trees of wire and electric fire
Copper and silver and gold attired
Swayed beneath the marigold sun.



Oh, what a strange and wondrous land,
What a strange and wondrous land.

As he slept they wrapped him in circuitry
Will you marry me, sweet young Elise?
My dear, I sleep many worlds away
In the radium rays of a sleepless day
Cradled by thorns of bronze.

And the power flowed in
And the power flowed out
And the seasons changed
In their endless route
And the flowers grew
And the flowers fell
And he grew him a skeleton of bronze.

When he returned
‘Cross the whispering plains
And the sulfur sands, and the lilac waves
His bride was a-waiting by the gentle shore
And he took her in his arms and she knew no more
And he said, my love I will never let go
For I’ve seen the lands of lithium snow
And the peaks of fire and the caves of the crow
And I know why the crocodile cries.

Oh, what a strange and wondrous land,
What a strange and wondrous land.