A Glimpse Of China. In A Chair.

(Foo-chow.)


From the bright and blinding sunshine,
    From the whirling locust's song,
Into the dark and narrow fissures
    Of the streets I am borne along.

Here and there dusky-beaming
    A sun-shaft broadens and drops
On the brown bare crowd slow-passing
    The crowd of the open shops.

We move on over the bridges
    With their straight-hewn blocks of stone.
And their quaint grey animal figures,
    And the booths the hucksters own.

Behind a linen awning
    Sits an ancient wight half-dead,
And a little dear of a girl is
    Examining - his head.

On a bended bamboo shouldered,
    Bearing a block of stone,
Two worn-out coolies half-naked
    Utter their grunting groan.

Children, almond-eyed beauties,
    Impossibly mangy curs,
Take part in the motley stream of
    Insouciant passengers.

This is the dream, the vision
    That comes to me and greets -
The vision of Retribution
    In the labyrinthine streets!