The ladies,
Wistaria Blossom, Cloth-of-Silk, and Deep Snow,
With their ten attendants,
Are come to Asakusa
To gaze at peonies.
To admire crimson-carmine peonies,
To stare in admiration at bomb-shaped, white and sulphur peonies,
To caress with a soft finger
Single, rose-flat peonies,
Tight, incurved, red-edged peonies,
Spin-wheel circle, amaranth peonies.
To smell the acrid pungence of peony blooms,
And dream for months afterwards
Of the temple garden at Asakusa,
Where they walked together
Looking at peonies.
The Gate! The Gate! The far-shining Gate! Pat your guns and thank your stars you have not come too late. The Orient's a sleepy place, as all globe-trotters say. We'll get there soon enough, my lads, and carry it away. That's a good enough song to round the Cape with, and there's the Table Cloth on Table Mountain and we've drawn a Lead over half the curving world. Three cheers for Old Glory, fellows.
A Daimio's procession
Winds between two green hills,
A line of thin, sharp, shining, pointed spears
Above red coats
And yellow mushroom hats.
A man leading an ox
Has cast himself upon the ground,
He rubs his forehead in the dust,
While his ox gazes with wide, moon eyes
At the glittering spears
Majestically parading
Between two green hills.
Down, down, down, to the bottom of the map; but we must up again, high on the other side. America, sailing the seas of a planet to stock the shop counters at home. Commerce-raiding a nation; pulling apart the curtains of a temple and calling it trade. Magnificent mission! Every shop-till in every bye-street will bless you. Force the shut gate with the muzzles of your black cannon. Then wait—wait for fifty years—and see who has conquered. But now the Mississippi must brave the Cape, in a crashing of bitter seas. The wind blows East, the wind blows West, there is no rest under these clashing clouds. Petrel whirl by like torn newspapers along a street. Albatrosses fly close to the mastheads. Dread purrs over this stormy ocean, and the smell of the water is the dead, oozing dampness of tombs.
Tiger rain on the temple bridge of carved green-stone,
Slanting tiger lines of rain on the lichened lanterns
of the gateway,
On the stone statues of mythical warriors.
Striped rain making the bells of the pagoda roofs flutter,
Tiger-footing on the bluish stones of the court-yard,
Beating, snapping, on the cheese-rounds of open umbrellas,
Licking, tiger-tongued, over the straw mat which
a pilgrim wears upon his shoulders,
Gnawing, tiger-toothed, into the paper mask
Which he carries on his back.
Tiger-clawed rain scattering the peach-blossoms,
Tiger tails of rain lashing furiously among the cryptomerias.
"Land—O." Mauritius. Stepping-stone four. The coaling ships have arrived, and the shore is a hive of Negroes, and Malays, and Lascars, and Chinese. The clip and clatter of tongues is unceasing. "What awful brutes!" "Obviously, but the fruits they sell are good." "Food, fellows, bully good food." Yankee money for pine-apples, shaddocks, mangoes. "Who were Paul and Virginia?" "Oh, a couple of spooneys who died here, in a shipwreck, because the lady wouldn't take off her smock." "I say, Fred, that's a shabby way to put it. You've no sentiment." "Maybe. I don't read much myself, and when I do, I prefer United States, something like old Artemus Ward, for instance." "Oh, dry up, and let's get some donkeys and go for a gallop. We've got to begin coaling to-morrow, remember."
The beautiful dresses,
Blue, Green, Mauve, Yellow;
And the beautiful green pointed hats
Like Chinese porcelains!
See, a band of geisha
Is imitating the state procession of a Corean Ambassador,
Under painted streamers,
On an early afternoon.
The hot sun burns the tar up out of the deck. The paddle-wheels turn, flinging the cupped water over their shoulders. Heat smoulders along the horizon. The shadow of the ship floats off the starboard quarter, floats like a dark cloth upon the sea. The watch is pulling on the topsail halliards:
"O Sally Brown of New York City,
Ay ay, roll and go."
Like a tired beetle, the Mississippi creeps over the flat, glass water, creeps on, breathing heavily. Creeps—creeps—and sighs and settles at Pointe de Galle, Ceylon.