LOTUS FLOWERS
who gathered his guests together on a midsummer day and put wine in the lotus leaves and let his guests drink it from the stems of the leaves. A truly romantic feast.
In Japan the leaves are used for dishes at the Soul’s Festival in July; the dead spirits who return to this world from Hades are supposed to eat the offerings from the leaf dishes. The Japanese have a delicacy called hasu meshi—hasu meaning lotus, meshi, rice—consisting of the young and tender lotus leaves chopped fine and cooked with rice. They also eat the little fruit of the lotus, no larger than a pebble, which, contrary to most fruit, can be eaten raw when it is unripe, but gets so terribly hard as it ripens that it has to be cooked. The dried leaves seem to be valued as a drug, and also the vegetable-sellers wrap their vegetables in them. All this is too unromantic to be associated with the lotus, and I was better pleased to hear of the Japanese phrase ben po, meaning lotus step, which they associate with the light step of a beautiful woman. A pretty story of old China is told of the Lord Tokonko of the province Sei, who was extravagant in the extreme. He had as his mistress a lovely girl called Han hi. One day he made lotus petals of real gold and scattered them in his garden; then he called out to his mistress to let her step on them, and he was very happy to see his fair lady and his gold flowers equally well matched in beauty. Truly Han hi’s “lotus step” must have been a wonder.
In saying farewell to the time of the lotus I feel I cannot do better than quote Mrs. Fenollosa’s charming poem—
For years, long years ago, on lake and river,
The lotus bloomed, with petals curl on curl
Close folded; and to full perfection never
Had opened wide those lattices of pearl.
Like fair white maids with finger-tips a-meeting,
Like wordless song unwed to music’s art,
They pierced the stream each morn in pallid greeting;
Then shrank in silence, for they had no heart.
Above them, nightly, stars would lean, and hover
With gifts of whisper-rays, and kisses long;
But all in vain, till one transcendent lover
Slid down from heaven among the startled throng.
At morn the flowers stood still like pale nuns hushing;
But one among them throbbed her sweetness far,
Like arms outspread the full-veined petals flushing,
For in her trembling heart there lay a star.