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...EPITAPH ON AN ARMY OF MERCENARIES by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE RUSTIC LAD'S LAMENT IN THE TOWN by DAVID MACBETH MOIR DRIFTING by THOMAS BUCHANAN READ LOCKSLEY HALL by ALFRED TENNYSON THE MIST AND ALL by DIXIE WILLSON EPITAPH by KENNETH SLADE ALLING A SOCIETY MARTYR by JOHN CLINTON ANTHONY |