This person did not respond in like manner,
Knowing that he is not himself all-perfect,
Nor even in every hour
A devout follower of the teachings of the Four Books.
He contented himself with repeating in a far-reaching tone,
The words of the lofty Lao Tzu:
When pot upon stove reproveth kettle for blackness,
Pot speaking out of turn.
A Song of Little Girls
I want to make a song of the little girls
That live about this quarter.
I could make a song of boys quite easily with words,
But words are too blunt for such delicate things as girls.
I would like to make my song of them with bees and butterflies.
One looks at the boy, and says Boy;
And lo, one has described him.
But little girls are morning light and melody;
Their happy hair flutters and flies, or curtains their laughing faces—
Faces glad as the sun at dawn.
Their clear, cool skin is like wine to the eyes,
The lines of their fluent limbs run like a song,
And every step is a note of grace which the frock repeats.
Don't you think it a pity, and greatly to be deplored
That these should lose this beauty,
And pass from it to the guile and trickery of woman?
Of Shop Windows
Looking closely at the glass windows of my shop,
I see in them the whole of my shop reflected.
Looking at my windows closely from the street,
I see in them the life of the street reflected.
Yet if I stand away, the glass remains transparent,
And I see clearly through it to the things beyond.
If I look with close vision
Into the hearts of men,
I see my own small heart reflected.
I will try henceforth not to look at them too closely.
At the Feast of Lanterns
Lithely on their strings swing the many-coloured lanterns,
For this is the Feast of Lanterns;
And Pennyfields and West India Dock Road
Are to-night a part of my own country,
Aglow with the hues of the Peacock's Tail,
Very amiable to the eye.
In a recess of my heart
Is a poor street hung with lanterns.
These lanterns are my thoughts,
And they are lighted at the last hours of the evenings,
When through this street
Walks the willowy maiden from the tea-shop across the road.