K'U-KIANG

Because the sun like a Chinese lantern

Set in a temple of clouds tonight,

I was back in K'u-Kiang!

Because in a temple of dragon clouds,

As if with incense misty red,

It hung there over the rim of the sea,

I was back in a narrow street,

Where amber faces pass all day,

Going to pay, going to pray,

Going the same old human way

They have gone for a thousand years, men say,

In K'u-Kiang.

And I heard the coolie cry for his fare,

I heard the merchant praise his ware

Of bronze and porcelain set to snare,

In K'u-Kiang!

I saw strange streaming signs in black

With gold and crimson on their back —

Opiate signs in an opiate street;

Where the slip and patter of felt-shod feet

Is old as the sun;

And the temple door

As cool and dark as the night.

And where dim lanterns, swinging there,

As a lure to human grief and care,

Half reveal and half conceal

The ancestral gloom of the gods.

I saw all this with sudden pang,

As if by hashish swept or bhang,

Because the sun, like a Chinese lantern,

Set in a temple of clouds!