The Story of Porcelain
To
Margaret Huxley
this book is affectionately inscribed
THE BOWL
Some master-craftsman, maker of porcelains, to the Emperor, the Son of Heaven,
Having attained the paradise of artists, who mould in life and fire,
Fashioned this day:
A bowl blue as the iris within the sacred gardens,
Based with a low design of brown bare hills,
A pine or two new-tipped with tender needles,
With oak buds, pink and saffron,
And birds red, brown, and blue.
Into this bowl, exquisite and perishable,
The Patron of all artists heaps light and more light;
Then holding high the brimming chalice, quaffs,
And folds it in his altar-cloth of stars.
Carl H. Grabo. (From the Nation.)