FROM the knoll of beeches peeping On the patterned water sleeping Stands the Chinese temple yet, Heaped with dead leaves, all alone. Faded are its amber panels, Where the channering insect channels, And the blood-red dragons fret That glared so grimly thereupon. Mother-pearl and pink shells once In formal geometricons Gemmed the arrassed inner wall, But tapestries and frieze are gone. The small robin reconnoitres, Unabashed the woodmouse loiters: Brown owls hoot at shadow-fall And deathwatch ticks and beetles drone. But I see the shamed pavilion Bright with yellow and vermilion, And, in the sun's hallucination, Squired by mandarin Corydon, Satin-sandalled Chloes glimmering, Gryphon-urns of Bohea shimmering, And the long lost generation Seems once more to be my own. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE BIRTH OF HIS SON by SU SHIH THE DEATH OF HUSS by ALFRED AUSTIN DEEDS UNDONE by GAMALIEL BRADFORD THE WANDERER: 2. IN FRANCE: A REMEMBRANCE by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON GARFIELD'S RIDE AT CHICKAMAUGA by HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH |