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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=532737" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Chinese Nightingale</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">A Song in Chinese Tapestries</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>"How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said,<br>"San Francisco sleeps as the dead—<br>Ended license, lust and play:<br>Why do you iron the night away?<br>Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound,<br>With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round.<br>While the monster shadows glower and creep,<br>What can be better for man than sleep?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"I will tell you a secret," Chang replied;<br>"My breast with vision is satisfied,<br>And I see green trees and fluttering wings,<br>And my deathless bird from Shanghai sings."<br>Then he lit five fire-crackers in a pan.<br>"Pop, pop," said the fire-crackers, "cra-cra-crack."<br>He lit a joss stick long and black.<br>Then the proud gray joss in the corner stirred;<br>On his wrist appeared a gray small bird,<br>And this was the song of the gray small bird:<br>"Where is the princess, loved forever,<br>Who made Chang first of the kings of men?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the joss in the corner stirred again;<br>And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke,<br>Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke.<br>It piled in a maze round the ironing-place,<br>And there on the snowy table wide<br>Stood a Chinese lady of high degree,<br>With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face....<br>Yet she put away all form and pride,<br>And laid her glimmering veil aside<br>With a childlike smile for Chang and for me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The walls fell back, night was aflower,<br>The table gleamed in a moonlit bower,<br>While Chang, with a countenance carved of stone,<br>Ironed and ironed, all alone.<br>And thus she sang to the busy man Chang:<br>"Have you forgotten....<br>Deep in the ages, long, long ago,<br>I was your sweetheart, there on the sand—<br>Storm-worn beach of the Chinese land?<br>We sold our grain in the peacock town<br>Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown—<br>Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown....</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"When all the world was drinking blood<br>From the skulls of men and bulls<br>And all the world had swords and clubs of stone,<br>We drank our tea in China beneath the sacred spice-trees,<br>And heard the curled waves of the harbor moan.<br>And this gray bird, in Love's first spring,<br>With a bright-bronze breast and a bronze-brown wing,<br>Captured the world with his carolling.<br>Do you remember, ages after,<br>At last the world we were born to own?<br>You were the heir of the yellow throne—<br>The world was the field of the Chinese man<br>And we were the pride of the Sons of Han?<br>We copied deep books and we carved in jade,<br>And wove blue silks in the mulberry shade...."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"I remember, I remember<br>That Spring came on forever,<br>That Spring came on forever,"<br>Said the Chinese nightingale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My heart was filled with marvel and dream,<br>Though I saw the western street-lamps gleam,<br>Though dawn was bringing the western day,<br>Though Chang was a laundryman ironing away....<br>Mingled there with the streets and alleys,<br>The railroad-yard and the clock-tower bright,<br>Demon clouds crossed ancient valleys;<br>Across wide lotus-ponds of light<br>I marked a giant firefly's flight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the lady, rosy-red,<br>Flourished her fan, her shimmering fan,<br>Stretched her hand toward Chang, and said:<br>"Do you remember,<br>Ages after,<br>Our palace of heart-red stone?<br>Do you remember<br>The little doll-faced children<br>With their lanterns full of moon-fire,<br>That came from all the empire<br>Honoring the throne?—<br>The loveliest fête and carnival<br>Our world had ever known?<br>The sages sat about us<br>With their heads bowed in their beards,<br>With proper meditation on the sight.<br>Confucius was not born;<br>We lived in those great days<br>Confucius later said were lived aright....</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And this gray bird, on that day of spring,<br>With a bright bronze breast, and a bronze-brown wing,<br>Captured the world with his carolling.<br>Late at night his tune was spent.<br>Peasants,<br>Sages,<br>Children,<br>Hom eward went,<br>And then the bronze bird sang for you and me.<br>We walked alone. Our hearts were high and free.<br>I had a silvery name, I had a silvery name,<br>I had a silvery name — do you remember<br>The name you cried beside the tumbling sea?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Chang turned not to the lady slim—<br>He bent to his work, ironing away;<br>But she was arch, and knowing and glowing,<br>And the bird on his shoulder spoke for him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Darling . . . darling . . . darling . . . darling . . ."<br>Said the Chinese nightingale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The great gray joss on a rustic shelf,<br>Rakish and shrewd, with his collar awry,<br>Sang impolitely, as though by himself,<br>Drowning with his bellowing the nightingale's cry:<br>"Back through a hundred, hundred years<br>Hear the waves as they climb the piers,<br>Hear the howl of the silver seas,<br>Hear the thunder.<br>Hear the gongs of holy China<br>How the waves and tunes combine<br>In a rhythmic clashing wonder,<br>Incantation old and fine:<br>`Dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons,<br>Red fire-crackers, and green fire-crackers,<br>And dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons.'"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then the lady, rosy-red,<br>Turned to her lover Chang and said:<br>"Dare you forget that turquoise dawn<br>When we stood in our mist-hung velvet lawn,<br>And worked a spell this great joss taught<br>Till a God of the Dragons was charmed and caught?<br>From the flag high over our palace home<br>He flew to our feet in rainbow-foam —<br>A king of beauty and tempest and thunder<br>Panting to tear our sorrows asunder.<br>A dragon of fair adventure and wonder.<br>We mounted the back of that royal slave<br>With thoughts of desire that were noble and grave.<br>We swam down the shore to the dragon-mountains,<br>We whirled to the peaks and the fiery fountains.<br>To our secret ivory house we were bourne.<br>We looked down the wonderful wing-filled regions<br>Where the dragons darted in glimmering legions.<br>Right by my breast the nightingale sang;<br>The old rhymes rang in the sunlit mist<br>That we this hour regain —<br>Song-fire for the brain.<br>When my hands and my hair and my feet you kissed,<br>When you cried for your heart's new pain,<br>What was my name in the dragon-mist,<br>In the rings of rainbowed rain?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Sorrow and love, glory and love,"<br>Said the Chinese nightingale.<br>"Sorrow and love, glory and love,"<br>Said the Chinese nightingale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now the joss broke in with his song:<br>"Dying ember, bird of Chang,<br>Soul of Chang, do you remember? —<br>Ere you returned to the shining harbor<br>There were pirates by ten thousand<br>Descended on the town<br>In vessels mountain-high and red and brown,<br>Moon-ships that climbed the storms and cut the skies.<br>On their prows were painted terrible bright eyes.<br>But I was then a wizard and a scholar and a priest;<br>I stood upon the sand;<br>With lifted hand I looked upon them<br>And sunk their vessels with my wizard eyes,<br>And the stately lacquer-gate made safe again.<br>Deep, deep below the bay, the sea-weed and the spray,<br>Embalmed in amber every pirate lies,<br>Embalmed in amber every pirate lies."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then this did the noble lady say:<br>"Bird, do you dream of our home-coming day<br>When you flew like a courier on before<br>From the dragon-peak to our palace-door,<br>And we drove the steed in your singing path—<br>The ramping dragon of laughter and wrath:<br>And found our city all aglow,<br>And knighted this joss that decked it so?<br>There were golden fishes in the purple river<br>And silver fishes and rainbow fishes.<br>There were golden junks in the laughing river,<br>And silver junks and rainbow junks:<br>There were golden lilies by the bay and river,<br>And silver lilies and tiger-lilies,<br>And tinkling wind-bells in the gardens of the town<br>By the black-lacquer gate<br>Where walked in state<br>The kind king Chang<br>And his sweet-heart mate....<br>With his flag-born dragon<br>And his crown of pearl...and...jade,<br>And his nightingale reigning in the mulberry shade,<br>And sailors and soldiers on the sea-sands brown,<br>And priests who bowed them down to your song—<br>By the city called Han, the peacock town,<br>By the city called Han, the nightingale town,<br>The nightingale town."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then sang the bird, so strangely gay,<br>Fluttering, fluttering, ghostly and gray,<br>A vague, unravelling, final tune,<br>Like a long unwinding silk cocoon;<br>Sang as though for the soul of him<br>Who ironed away in that bower dim: —<br>"I have forgotten<br>Your dragons great,<br>Merry and mad and friendly and bold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Dim is your proud lost palace-gate.<br>I vaguely know<br>There were heroes of old,<br>Troubles more than the heart could hold,<br>There were wolves in the woods<br>Yet lambs in the fold,<br>Nests in the top of the almond tree....<br>The evergreen tree... and the mulberry tree...<br>Life and hurry and joy forgotten,<br>Years on years I but half-remember...<br>Man is a torch, then ashes soon,<br>May and June, then dead December,<br>Dead December, then again June.<br>Who shall end my dream's confusion?<br>Life is a loom, weaving illusion...<br>I remember, I remember<br>There were ghostly veils and laces...<br>In the shadowy bowery places...<br>With lovers' ardent faces<br>Bending to one another,<br>Speaking each his part.<br>They infinitely echo<br>In the red cave of my heart.<br>`Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart.'<br>They said to one another.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They spoke, I think, of perils past.<br>They spoke, I think, of peace at last.<br>One thing I remember:<br>Spring came on forever,<br>Spring came on forever,"<br>Said the Chinese nightingale.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Vachel+Lindsay">Vachel Lindsay</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <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=532737" data-title="The Chinese Nightingale de Vachel Lindsay" data-description="A Song in Chinese Tapestries "How, 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, With..."></div> </div> </div>
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