Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON A CHINESE RING, by MARY R. LINEBACK


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON A CHINESE RING, by                    
First Line: What secret, guarded by these silent / snakes
Last Line: The serpent heads upon thy bosom lie!
Subject(s): Jewelry & Jewelers; Rings; Bracelets; Necklaces


WHAT secret, guarded by these silent snakes
That coil their fretted golden length around
Thy soul, has Nature fused in thee, conceived
Of the primordial, born of the flux of ages?
O Eastern Jewel! whence have you your fires?
What blood, what passion, what prophetic flame,
What green of dragon scales, what purple stain
From royal mantles, blue of sea and sky,
What rose of setting sun, what orient gold,
Like bright-winged water-flies on some dark pool
Shadowed at noon, elude, yet fascinate!
The pageantry of centuries, deep-dyed
In glorious myth, relives itself in thee.
In flooding-ebbing symphonies of light
They rise from thy unsearchable depth, and pass
Back into silence. These from nations long
Since dead, concentrate here in thee.
Dust of what warriors, fall'n in old Cathay,
Here side by side with the flaring torch that fired
Some helpless village, dulls the blue of truth?
Here glows the sacrificial altar gay
With flowers while mothers mourn in futile pain.
With rainbow lanterns, solemnly and slow,
Now comes a great procession to a pyre
Whereon the heroes immolate themselves
For honor's sake before victorious foes.
What demon's eye gleams here of venom green
While blackest dread obscures all else around?
But now there shines a royal diadem,
The burnished gongs clang loud, the throngs appear,
The banners stream—
Then all slips out of sight
In proud prismatic beauty. But with all
The paintings thou dost in the fancy breed,
That depth of mystery in thee is not revealed.
Or dost thou, Gem, know nothing more than I
Of that which kindled all thy subtle fires,
Of life, death, resurrection, and the change
That cycles through the aeons? Silent still
The serpent heads upon thy bosom lie!





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