CLIMB up a flight of darkly-winding stair, Push through a swinging door, and you are there. The ceiling lowers low with strange design Where fire-mouthed dragons coil and intertwine. The joss-sticks' thin blue vapor creeps about Like prisoned spirit seeking some way out, And slipshod waiters shuffle silent by With rustling garments and quaint-slanted eye. If you but fold your sight you are away In some quaint yellow corner of Cathay, Lost in a garden of hand-monstered trees And exquisite uncouth barbarities Where threats a eunuch one-eyed like a star Towering malignant with a scimitar. Now the sun-smitten highway, where there plies His trade the beggar with self-blinded eyes. ... Now, drowning pastoral matin, woodland song, From a great temple booms a brazen gong. ... The streets with chattering hordes are oversped Like swarming vermin in a beggar's head; And, here and there, amongst the long-cued horde, A coolie-borne palanquin speaks a Lord. ... The spell is broken ... Here's some tea to quaff ... Hark! from behind you flower-damasked screen There breaks a coarse, loud-mouthed, salacious laugh Pregnant with goatish lusts and deeds obscene ... It is some tawdry prostitute, I guess, Whose voice betrays her painted wantonness. |