I am gnawn with desire for the daughters of Lam Kee Chow: Lovely of face and of body, lovely of speech and name; Lam Po Loo and her sister, Lam Sui-lau, Not one or another, but both, have set me aflame. Lam Po Loo is slender and delicate-fashioned, Her eyes are as lakes, fringed with shadowy palms; Lam Sui-lau is sturdy and supple-passioned -- Their faces are moon-flower petals; their voices are psalms. They have eaten the jointed roots of the lotus flower And their breath and their words are sweet with the lotus bloom: (I am shaken with fever, I dream of a secret hour In the fragrant desirable depths of an exquisite doom). They and I -- but no, I am mad, we shall never Sip of the bowl I would drain in a toxic trance Nor eat of the pallid roots of the lotus together Where the feathery bamboos wave in a ghostly dance. My father is stern and hard and bitter with zeal; And Lam Kee Chow is subtle and grave and wise. I am crushed with a terrible dread lest I reveal The thought of my mind to the searching of their eyes. Yet I cannot choose -- though daily anew I vow To prison my love with the seal of an iron door -- But embrace with my eyes the daughters of Lam Kee Chow -- And my veins leap -- It is madness! I write no more. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THREE GATES [OF GOLD] by ELIZABETH DAYTON AURENG-ZEBE, OR THE GREAT MOGUL: PROLOGUE by JOHN DRYDEN THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE by PHILIP FRENEAU THE REVEILLE by FRANCIS BRET HARTE EPITAPH ON AN ARMY OF MERCENARIES by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN |