Of Blue China

Andrew Lang (1844–1912)

THERE ’s a joy without canker or cark,

There ’s a pleasure eternally new,

’T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark

Of china that ’s ancient and blue;

Unchipped, all the centuries through

It has passed, since the chime of it rang,

And they fashioned it, figure and hue,

In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

These dragons (their tails, you remark,

Into bunches of gillyflowers grew),—

When Noah came out of the ark,

Did these lie in wait for his crew?

They snorted, they snapped, and they slew,

They were mighty of fin and of fang,

And their portraits Celestials drew

In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

Here ’s a pot with a cot in a park,

In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,

Where the lovers eloped in the dark,

Lived, died, and were changed into two

Bright birds that eternally flew

Through the boughs of the may, as they sang;

’T is a tale was undoubtedly true

In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

ENVOY

Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do,

Kind critic; your “tongue has a tang,”

But—a sage never heeded a shrew

In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.