Consider these verses, little friend,
As cups of suey sen
Flavoured with the buds of the flower of all flowers.
Of Inaccessible Beauty
Ladies in elegant silks and laces
Have come at times to my insignificant shop,
For pieces of jade, or banners, or curious cuttings of ivory.
And I look with insufferable emotion
Upon their roseleaf skin,
And breathe the soft scents that flow from their garments,
And long to soothe their lily-fingered hands.
In their presence
I am seized with longings unutterable,
And am filled with a sickness of my present unkind estate.
But then I remember
That Beauty's not always a star,
Not always remote, not always in lofty places,
Chrysanthemum-clad and lily-sheathed;
But often lies in the hedges
And peeps from street-corners
And lurks shyly behind broken doorways.
And I think upon the kind and considerate beauty
Of the maid with the golden curls,
And her patched, uncoloured robes of common cloth.
And with a change of mood I charge the elegant ladies
Three times the value of the articles chosen,
And thus tear from their flowery bodies
Pieces of their billowing silk
To deck the less fervid beauty of my friend.
Night and Day
The waters of the river flow swiftly at Limehouse Hole,
Past wharves, and ugly gardens,
Past beautiful steel ships and tawny sails,
Past clamorous factories and broken boats and bells.
Throughout the day these things are one—
One body of dire endeavour.
But when the evening introduces the night,
This thing is broken into a thousand delicacies,
And the warm notes of night
Make happy discord of the day's harsh harmonies.
Of a Night in War-Time
Upon a night I sat behind my shop,
In happy talk with casual company:
The upright Ho Ling, the grave Cheng Huan,
And the round-bodied and amiable Sway Too, of my own country;
Together with the maid of the golden curls,
A sad-eyed seaman from Malay,
And two pale Englishmen, Bill Hawkins and Jack Brown.