| |
| “HOW, 1 how,” he said. “Friend Chang,” I said, | |
| “San Francisco sleeps as the dead— | |
| Ended license, lust and play: | |
| Why do you iron the night away? | |
| Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound, | 5 |
| With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round. | |
| While the monster shadows glower and creep, | |
| What can be better for man than sleep?” | |
| |
| “I will tell you a secret,” Chang replied; | |
| “My breast with vision is satisfied, | 10 |
| And I see green trees and fluttering wings, | |
| And my deathless bird from Shanghai sings.” | |
| Then he lit five fire-crackers in a pan. | |
| “Pop, pop,” said the fire-crackers, “cra-cra-crack.” | |
| He lit a joss stick long and black. | 15 |
| Then the proud gray joss in the corner stirred; | |
| On his wrist appeared a gray small bird, | |
| And this was the song of the gray small bird: | |
| “Where is the princess, loved forever, | |
| Who made Chang first of the kings of men?” | 20 |
| |
| And the joss in the corner stirred again; | |
| And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, | |
| Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. | |
| It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, | |
| And there on the snowy table wide | 25 |
| Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, | |
| With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face … | |
| Yet she put away all form and pride, | |
| And laid her glimmering veil aside | |
| With a childlike smile for Chang and for me. | 30 |
| |
| The walls fell back, night was aflower, | |
| The table gleamed in a moonlit bower, | |
| While Chang, with a countenance carved of stone, | |
| Ironed and ironed, all alone. | |
| And thus she sang to the busy man Chang: | 35 |
| “Have you forgotten … | |
| Deep in the ages, long, long ago, | |
| I was your sweetheart, there on the sand— | |
| Storm-worn beach of the Chinese land? | |
| We sold our grain in the peacock town | 40 |
| Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown— | |
| Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown … | |
| |
| “When all the world was drinking blood | |
| From the skulls of men and bulls | |
| And all the world had swords and clubs of stone, | 45 |
| We drank our tea in China beneath the sacred spice-trees, | |
| And heard the curled waves of the harbor moan. | |
| And this gray bird, in Love’s first spring, | |
| With a bright-bronze breast and a bronze-brown wing, | |
| Captured the world with his carolling. | 50 |
| Do you remember, ages after, | |
| At last the world we were born to own? | |
| You were the heir of the yellow throne— | |
| The world was the field of the Chinese man | |
| And we were the pride of the Sons of Han? | 55 |
| We copied deep books and we carved in jade, | |
| And wove blue silks in the mulberry shade …” | |
| |
| “I remember, I remember | |
| That Spring came on forever, | |
| That Spring came on forever,” | 60 |
| Said the Chinese nightingale. | |
| |
| My heart was filled with marvel and dream, | |
| Though I saw the western street-lamps gleam, | |
| Though dawn was bringing the western day, | |
| Though Chang was a laundryman ironing away … | 65 |
| Mingled there with the streets and alleys, | |
| The railroad-yard and the clock-tower bright, | |
| Demon clouds crossed ancient valleys; | |
| Across wide lotus-ponds of light | |
| I marked a giant firefly’s flight. | 70 |
| |
| And the lady, rosy-red, | |
| Flourished her fan, her shimmering fan, | |
| Stretched her hand toward Chang, and said: | |
| “Do you remember, | |
| Ages after, | 75 |
| Our palace of heart-red stone? | |
| Do you remember | |
| The little doll-faced children | |
| With their lanterns full of moon-fire, | |
| That came from all the empire | 80 |
| Honoring the throne?— | |
| The loveliest fête and carnival | |
| Our world had ever known? | |
| The sages sat about us | |
| With their heads bowed in their beards, | 85 |
| With proper meditation on the sight. | |
| Confucius was not born; | |
| We lived in those great days | |
| Confucius later said were lived aright … | |
| And this gray bird, on that day of spring, | 90 |
| With a bright-bronze breast, and a bronze-brown wing, | |
| Captured the world with his carolling. | |
| Late at night his tune was spent. | |
| Peasants, | |
| Sages, | 95 |
| Children, | |
| Homeward went, | |
| And then the bronze bird sang for you and me. | |
| We walked alone. Our hearts were high and free. | |
| I had a silvery name, I had a silvery name, | 100 |
| I had a silvery name—do you remember | |
| The name you cried beside the tumbling sea?” | |
| |
| Chang turned not to the lady slim— | |
| He bent to his work, ironing away; | |
| But she was arch, and knowing and glowing, | 105 |
| And the bird on his shoulder spoke for him. | |
| |
| “Darling … darling … darling … darling …” | |
| Said the Chinese nightingale. | |
| |
| The great gray joss on a rustic shelf, | |
| Rakish and shrewd, with his collar awry, | 110 |
| Sang impolitely, as though by himself, | |
| Drowning with his bellowing the nightingale’s cry: | |
| “Back through a hundred, hundred years | |
| Hear the waves as they climb the piers, | |
| Hear the howl of the silver seas, | 115 |
| Hear the thunder. | |
| Hear the gongs of holy China | |
| How the waves and tunes combine | |
| In a rhythmic clashing wonder, | |
| Incantation old and fine: | 120 |
| ‘Dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons, | |
| Red fire-crackers, and green fire-crackers, | |
| And dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons.’” | |
| |
| Then the lady, rosy-red, | |
| Turned to her lover Chang and said: | 125 |
| “Dare you forget that turquoise dawn, | |
| When we stood in our mist-hung velvet lawn, | |
| And worked a spell this great joss taught | |
| Till a God of the Dragons was charmed and caught? | |
| From the flag high over our palace home | 130 |
| He flew to our feet in rainbow-foam— | |
| A king of beauty and tempest and thunder | |
| Panting to tear our sorrows asunder: | |
| A dragon of fair adventure and wonder. | |
| We mounted the back of that royal slave | 135 |
| With thoughts of desire that were noble and grave. | |
| We swam down the shore to the dragon-mountains, | |
| We whirled to the peaks and the fiery fountains. | |
| To our secret ivory house we were borne. | |
| We looked down the wonderful wing-filled regions | 140 |
| Where the dragons darted in glimmering legions. | |
| Right by my breast the nightingale sang; | |
| The old rhymes rang in the sunlit mist | |
| That we this hour regain— | |
| Song-fire for the brain. | 145 |
| When my hands and my hair and my feet you kissed, | |
| When you cried for your heart’s new pain, | |
| What was my name in the dragon-mist, | |
| In the rings of rainbowed rain?” | |
| |
| “Sorrow and love, glory and love,” | 150 |
| Said the Chinese nightingale. | |
| “Sorrow and love, glory and love,” | |
| Said the Chinese nightingale. | |
| |
| And now the joss broke in with his song: | |
| “Dying ember, bird of Chang, | 155 |
| Soul of Chang, do you remember?— | |
| Ere you returned to the shining harbor | |
| There were pirates by ten thousand | |
| Descended on the town | |
| In vessels mountain-high and red and brown, | 160 |
| Moon-ships that climbed the storms and cut the skies. | |
| On their prows were painted terrible bright eyes. | |
| But I was then a wizard and a scholar and a priest; | |
| I stood upon the sand; | |
| With lifted hand I looked upon them | 165 |
| And sunk their vessels with my wizard eyes, | |
| And the stately lacquer-gate made safe again. | |
| Deep, deep below the bay, the sea-weed and the spray, | |
| Embalmed in amber every pirate lies, | |
| Embalmed in amber every pirate lies.” | 170 |
| |
| Then this did the noble lady say: | |
| “Bird, do you dream of our home-coming day | |
| When you flew like a courier on before | |
| From the dragon-peak to our palace-door, | |
| And we drove the steed in your singing path— | 175 |
| The ramping dragon of laughter and wrath: | |
| And found our city all aglow, | |
| And knighted this joss that decked it so? | |
| There were golden fishes in the purple river | |
| And silver fishes and rainbow fishes. | 180 |
| There were golden junks in the laughing river, | |
| And silver junks and rainbow junks: | |
| There were golden lilies by the bay and river, | |
| And silver lilies and tiger-lilies, | |
| And tinkling wind-bells in the gardens of the town | 185 |
| By the black-lacquer gate | |
| Where walked in state | |
| The kind king Chang | |
| And his sweetheart mate … | |
| With his flag-born dragon | 190 |
| And his crown of pearl … and … jade, | |
| And his nightingale reigning in the mulberry shade, | |
| And sailors and soldiers on the sea-sands brown, | |
| And priests who bowed them down to your song— | |
| By the city called Han, the peacock town, | 195 |
| By the city called Han, the nightingale town, | |
| The nightingale town.” | |
| |
| Then sang the bird, so strangely gay, | |
| Fluttering, fluttering, ghostly and gray, | |
| A vague, unravelling, final tune, | 200 |
| Like a long unwinding silk cocoon; | |
| Sang as though for the soul of him | |
| Who ironed away in that bower dim:— | |
| “I have forgotten | |
| Your dragons great, | 205 |
| Merry and mad and friendly and bold. | |
| Dim is your proud lost palace-gate. | |
| I vaguely know | |
| There were heroes of old, | |
| Troubles more than the heart could hold, | 210 |
| There were wolves in the woods | |
| Yet lambs in the fold, | |
| Nests in the top of the almond tree … | |
| The evergreen tree … and the mulberry tree … | |
| Life and hurry and joy forgotten, | 215 |
| Years on years I but half-remember … | |
| Man is a torch, then ashes soon, | |
| May and June, then dead December, | |
| Dead December, then again June. | |
| Who shall end my dream’s confusion? | 220 |
| Life is a loom, weaving illusion … | |
| I remember, I remember | |
| There were ghostly veils and laces … | |
| In the shadowy bowery places … | |
| With lovers’ ardent faces | 225 |
| Bending to one another, | |
| Speaking each his part. | |
| They infinitely echo | |
| In the red cave of my heart. | |
| ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart,’ | 230 |
| They said to one another. | |
| They spoke, I think, of perils past. | |
| They spoke, I think, of peace at last. | |
| One thing I remember: | |
| Spring came on forever, | 235 |
| Spring came on forever,” | |
| Said the Chinese nightingale. | |
