Vain, vain, unutterably vain are all
The sights and sounds that sink and fall,
The words and symbols of this fleeting breath:
Shall I not drown the finite in the Whole,
Cast off this body and complete my soul
Thro' deaths beyond this gate of death?
It will not open! Through the bars I see
The glory and the mystery
Wind upward ever! The earth-dawn breaks! I bleed
With beating here for entrance. Hark, O hark,
Love, Love, return and give me the great Dark,
Which is the Light of Life indeed.
THE FLOWER OF OLD JAPAN
DEDICATED TO CAROL, A LITTLE MAIDEN Of MYAKO.
PERSONS OF THE TALE
Ourselves
The Tall Thin Man
The Dwarf Behind the Twisted Pear-tree
Creeping Sin
The Mad Moonshee
The Nameless One
Pirates, Mandarins, Bonzes, Priests, Jugglers, Merchants, Ghastroi, Weirdrians, etc.
PRELUDE
You that have known the wonder zone
Of islands far away;
You that have heard the dinky bird
And roamed in rich Cathay;
You that have sailed o'er unknown seas
To woods of Amfalula trees
Where craggy dragons play:
Oh, girl or woman, boy or man,
You've plucked the Flower of Old Japan!