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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365867" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Swan Song</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her hair was as black as a starling's tail, <br>Her cheeks as pale as a swan, <br>Her eyes, like two slim moonstones, glowed<br>And her mouth was the Holy Grail.<br>She'd played in the dirt of the village street<br>So long ago, so long...<br>She'd swum in the pools of the mountain stream, <br>But now, that girl had gone.<br> <br>While I still rise with the early bird<br>To tend to my father's fields, <br>As the only son of an only son<br>I watched the woman leave.<br>She cried sweet tears as she said farewell<br>And vowed to come back, and soon, <br>But the village streets of a western town<br>Hold nothing for Ling Xiaodan.<br> <br>The weeks went by, then the months and years<br>And I heard of her now and then, <br>She was dressed in expensive clothes, I heard, <br>She was driving a shiny car; <br>She was seen at the Beijing Opera<br>By a man who worked at the door, <br>'She glided by like a Queen, ' he said, <br>'As her dress trailed long on the floor.'<br> <br>And her wai po, down in the village square<br>Would brag of her daughter's girl, <br>'She will snare some man with a million yuan, '<br>She said, 'not a farmer's son.<br>Go home to your fields and forget her now, <br>She's not for an also-ran! '<br>And laughed, as the tears sprang into my eyes<br>For the love of Ling Xiaodan.<br> <br>She came back once to the village street<br>To her home, as ever we must, <br>But carefully held her dress up high<br>To avoid the rubbish and dust, <br>I stood at the side and she looked at me, <br>Then turned, looked quickly away, <br>For Ling Xiaodan and a farmer's son<br>Had nothing at all to say.<br> <br>But I saw her once before she left, <br>Alone by the mountain stream, <br>Her eyes were sorrowful, in remorse, <br>Remembering how we'd been.<br>'I loved you once, as a child, ' she said<br>'But the world is harsh, and grey...<br>We do what our fathers want us to, <br>And my father sent me away.'<br> <br>I sat by her then, and held her hand, <br>Stroking her neck, and hair, <br>And kissed the cheek, so pale and wan, <br>And I cried in a deep despair.<br>'You must get on with your life, ' she said, <br>'Get a wife and a baby son; <br>I leave tomorrow to see the man<br>That my father has met in town.'<br> <br>I heard that she'd wed a businessman, <br>And cried in the quiet gloom, <br>My dream had died by the mountain stream, <br>On that day, in the afternoon.<br>She worked in a shop her husband owned, <br>So they said, but I never heard<br>'Til the body was brought back home again, <br>That the love of my life was dead.<br> <br>It seemed that she'd sold her favours there<br>In the rear of a grimy store, <br>To any man with the change to spare<br>While her husband played Mah Jongg.<br>He'd gambled his fortune, and lost it all<br>While his wife kept the fool from jail<br>With what she earned with her hands and hair, <br>And a mouth like the Holy Grail.<br> <br>But then, a man who was ill or mad<br>Put his grimy hands at her throat, <br>And squeezed the life from the darling neck<br>That I'd once both loved, and stroked.<br>They buried her up on the mountainside<br>By the stream, in sight of her home, <br>And from where I stand in the paddy fields<br>I can see her pale white stone.<br> <br>She'd played in the dirt of the village street<br>So long ago, so long...<br>She'd swum in the pools of the mountain stream, <br>But now, that girl had gone.<br>I married a woman I barely knew<br>And she bore me a black-haired girl, <br>With eyes like two slim moonstones, and...<br>A mouth like the Holy Grail.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">10 March 2006</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=David+Lewis+Paget">David Lewis Paget</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365867" data-title="Swan Song de David Lewis Paget" data-description="Her hair was as black as a starling's tail, 
Her cheeks as pale as a swan, 
Her eyes, like two slim moonstones, glowed
And her mouth was the Holy Grail.
She'd played in the dirt of the village street
So long ago, so long...
She'd swum in the pools..."></div>
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