Classic Poem

III

See how the generations pass—
Like sand through Heaven's blue hour-glass.

Arthur waits on the British shore
One thankful day,
For Galahad sails back at last
To Camelot Bay.

The pure knight lands and tells the tale:
“Far in the east
A sea-girl led us to a king,
The king to a feast,

In a land where poppies bloom for miles,
Where books are made like bricks and tiles.
I taught that king to love your name—
Brother and Christian he became.

“His Town of Thunder-Powder keeps
A giant hound that never sleeps,
A crocodile that sits and weeps.

“His Town of Cheese the mouse affrights
With fire-winged cats that light the nights.
They glorify the land of rust;
Their sneeze is music in the dust.
(And deep and ancient is the dust.)

“All towns have one same miracle
With the Town of Silk, the capital—
Vast bookworms in the book-built walls.
Their creeping shakes the silver halls;
They look like cables, and they seem
Like writhing roots on trees of dream.
Their sticky cobwebs cross the street,
Catching scholars by the feet,
Who own the tribes, yet rule them not,
Bitten by bookworms till they rot.
Beggars and clowns rebel in might
Bitten by bookworms till they fight.”

Arthur calls to his knights in rows:
“I will go if Merlin goes;
These rebels must be flayed and sliced,
Let us cut their throats for Christ.”
But Merlin whispers in his beard:
“China has witches to be feared.”

Arthur stares at the sea-foam's rim
Amazed. The fan-girl beckons him!—
That slender and peculiar child
Mongolian and brown and wild.
His eyes grow wide, his senses drown,
She laughs in her wing, like the sleeve of a gown.
She lifts a key of crimson stone.
“The Great Gunpowder-town you own.”
She lifts a key with chains and rings:
“I give the town where cats have wings.”
She lifts a key as white as milk:
“This unlocks the Town of Silk”—
Throws forty keys at Arthur's feet:
“These unlock the land complete.”

Then, frightened by suspicious knights,
And Merlin's eyes like altar-lights,
And the Christian towers of Arthur's town,
She spreads blue fins—she whirs away;
Fleeing far across the bay,
Wailing through the gorgeous day:
“My sick king begs
That you save his crown
And his learned chiefs from the worm and clown—
The Empire of China is crumbling down.”