 | Poems from the Garland of New Poetry |  |
16
THE IMPERIAL PRAYERS
Suggested by a passage in Mr. Valentine Chirol's the “Far Eastern Question.”
Silenced the streets with sand of holy hue,
Shrouded the curious houses with faint sheen
Of silk and broid'ry, which for months between
These awful feasts none but the moth dare view;
The Son of Heaven, the Unutterable Kwang Hsu,
Borne in his lofty-looming palanquin,
By slaves who, if they stumble, die unseen,
Flits like a ghost through midnight—what to do?
Shrouded the curious houses with faint sheen
Of silk and broid'ry, which for months between
These awful feasts none but the moth dare view;
The Son of Heaven, the Unutterable Kwang Hsu,
Borne in his lofty-looming palanquin,
By slaves who, if they stumble, die unseen,
Flits like a ghost through midnight—what to do?
The West stands clamouring outside his door:
We plan division of his lands and fame,
Yet hold Heredity for proven Truth.
To pray to his great Fathers gone before,
—Might not Marc Brutus once have done the same?—
Goes that spoiled, wretched, and mysterious youth.
We plan division of his lands and fame,
Yet hold Heredity for proven Truth.
To pray to his great Fathers gone before,
—Might not Marc Brutus once have done the same?—
Goes that spoiled, wretched, and mysterious youth.
| Poems from the Garland of New Poetry | |