THERE's a joy without canker or cark, There's a pleasure eternally new, 'T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark Of china that's ancient and blue; Unchipped, all the centuries through It has passed, since the chime of it rang, And they fashioned it, figure and hue, In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. These dragons (their tails, you remark, Into bunches of gillyflowers grew), -- When Noah came out of the ark, Did these lie in wait for his crew? They snorted, they snapped, and they slew, They were mighty of fin and of fang, And their portraits Celestials drew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. Here's a pot with a cot in a park, In a park where the peach-blossoms blew, Where the lovers eloped in the dark, Lived, died, and were changed into two Bright birds that eternally flew Through the boughs of the may, as they sang; 'T is a tale was undoubtedly true In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. ENVOY Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do, Kind critic; your "tongue has a tang," But -- a sage never heeded a shrew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE AUTHOR'S EPITAPH, MADE BY HIMSELF by WALTER RALEIGH PROSOPOPOIA, OR MOTHER HUBBERDS TALE by EDMUND SPENSER THE TRANSLATED WAY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THE LIP AND THE HEART by JOHN QUINCY ADAMS ONLY A BABY SMALL by MATTHIAS BARR IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: I WILL SMILE NO MORE by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT HINC LACHRIMAE; OR THE AUTHOR TO AURORA: 10 by WILLIAM BOSWORTH SONG, FR. A VISION OF GIORGIONE: GEMMA'S SPRING SONG by GORDON BOTTOMLEY |