Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard

Oh, city of the gypsies!
Who could see you and not remember you?
City of musk and sorrow,
City of cinnamon towers.
Oh, city of the gypsies!
Corners hung with flags.
Put your green lights out,
The Civil Guard is coming!
The city, free of fear,
Was multiplying doors.
Forty Civil guardsmen
Pour through to sack and burn.
Flight of long screams rose
from the weathercocks.
Sabre slashed the breezes
trampled under hoof.
Through the half-lit streets
Old gypsy women flee
With their sleepy horses
And enormous jars of coins.
Up the steep streets
climbed the sinister capes,
Leaving behind them brief
whirlwinds of shears.
Oh, city of the gypsies!
The Civil guardsmen ride away
Through a tunnel of silence
While the flames encircle you.