George Macdonald Major

FROM sullen skies a cheerless rain

That floods the half-choked gutter drain;

Ramshackle houses, brick and wood,

Where hides Disease with shroud and hood;

Worn doors, uncurtained window-panes

And mucky streets and garbage lanes—

And this is—this is Chinatown.

Pattering feet of Chinamen,

Holima, Ching-la,

Ribald girls of Chinatown;

Joss! how foul they are.

Within the ever-swinging door

The halls uncarpeted, where pour

The pungent, sickening opium fumes

From out the poorly furnished rooms,

Where spots of gilt and red attest

What dingy finery is the rest—

In Chinatown, in Chinatown.

Raising Cain in Chinatown,

Drink, and dope and toss;

Day and night are but a day,

Not a God, but Joss.

The Joss, a paint-daubed idol pent,

The third floor of a tenement,

Draped faded silk and tawdry gold,

Where wrinkled priests their service hold

While barbarous drum and banjos whine,

Make thoughts infernal not divine—

Within the fane of Chinatown.

Pictures of pagodas, too;

Tea-fields stretching down

Lumbering junks and sampan boats—

This is Chinatown.

And women old before their time,

With faces cursed by drink or crime,

From many open casements peer

At huddling Chinamen who leer

From doors of dens where gamblers meet

Or dives or corners of the street—

In tawdry, slattern Chinatown.

Calling out to sailor men:

“Sailor mokki hi,

Fightin’ dlunk in Doyers Stleet,

China gel no li!”