A Glimpse Of China. In A Sampan.

(Min River, Fo Kien.)


Up in the misty morning,
    Up past the gardened hills,
With the rhythmic stroke of the rowers,
    While the blue deep pales and thrills!

Past the rice-fields green low-lying,
    Where the sea-gull's winging down
From the fleets of junks and sampans
    And the ancient Chinese Town!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams (27 September 1862 – 4 September 1893) was an English writer, poet, dramatist, and social reformer. His literary work often reflected his radical socialist views. Adams lived a life marred by poverty and struggles with his health, eventually committing suicide at the age of 30. Despite his brief life, his contributions to literature and social thought remain significant.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

A Visitor In The Camp. To Mary Robinson. {27}

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

To Edith.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

Epode. "On The Ranges, Queensland."

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

To Queen Victoria In England. An Address On Her Jubilee Year.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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, al...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

A Glimpse Of China. Over The Samovar. {69A}

(Foo-chow.)


"Yes, I used always to think
    That you Russians knew
How to make the good drink
    As none others do.

"And I thought moreover,
    (Not with the epicures),
You might search the world over
    For such women as yours.

"In both these matters now
    I perceive I was right,
And I really can't tell you how
    Much I delight

"In my third (Thanks, another cup!)
    Idea of the fun,
When your country gets up
    And follows the sun!

"And just as in Europe, see,
    There's a conqueror nation,
So why not in Asia be
    A like jubilation?

"Taught as well as organized, {69b}
    The eternal Coolie,
From being robbed and despised,
    Takes to cutting throats duly!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Sampan Song

A little breeze blew over the sea,
    And it came from far away,
Across the fields of millet and rice,
All warm with sunshine and sweet with spice,
It lifted his curls and kissed him thrice,
    As upon the deck he lay.

It said, "Oh, idle upon the sea,
    Awake and with sleep have done,
Haul up the widest sail of the prow,
And come with me to the rice fields now,
She longs, oh, how can I tell you how,
    To show you your first-born son!"

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

A Glimpse Of China. "Caste."

These Chinese toil and yet they do not starve,
    And they obey, and yet they are not slaves.
It is the "free-born" fuddled Englishmen
    That grovel rotting in their living graves.

These Chinese do not fawn with servile lips;
    They lift up equal eyes that ask and scan.
Their degradation has escaped at least
    That choicest curse of all - the gentleman!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

In The Shadows

I am sailing to the leeward,
Where the current runs to seaward
        Soft and slow,
Where the sleeping river grasses
Brush my paddle as it passes
        To and fro.

On the shore the heat is shaking
All the golden sands awaking
        In the cove;
And the quaint sand-piper, winging
O'er the shallows, ceases singing
        When I move.

On the water's idle pillow
Sleeps the overhanging willow,
        Green and cool;
Where the rushes lift their burnished
Oval heads from out the tarnished
        Emerald pool.

Where the very silence slumbers,
Water lilies grow in numbers,
        Pure and pale;
All the morning they have rested,
Amber crowned, and pearly crested,
        Fair and frail.

Here, impo...

Emily Pauline Johnson

The Fisherman. (Mindanao, Philippines.)

In the dark waveless sea,
    Deep blue under deep blue,
The fisher drifts by on the tide
    In his small pole-balanced canoe.

Above him the cloud-clapped hills
    Crown the dense jungly sweeps;
The cocoa-nut groves hedge round
    The hut where the beach-wave sleeps.

Is it not better so
    To be as this savage is,
Than to live the wage-slave's life
    Of hopeless agonies?

Francis William Lauderdale Adams