Marco Polo

READING how Marco Polo came

By bridle-path to Kanbalu,

Forgotten fibres wake to flame,

And smoke old memories anew . . . .

For in a bygone life of mine

I watched the carven rampart shine,

Where Kublai's five-clawed dragons glowed

Like painted wyverns, line on line.

And past those plaster dragon-heads,

Those frescoes cut with curious flowers,

In verdigris and lilac-reds

Old tiles gleamed on the crusted towers,

While bridges cleft of serpent-stone

Bowed by their side, like branches blown

From some high granite Tree of Life

Whose roots were coiled round Kublai's throne.

O myrtles on the Jasper Mount,

O forest-towered elephants,

And fire-fish in the topaz fount

With red fins blown like water-plants,

And green cornelian tortoise-rows

Below the aqueduct, and those

Gold-feathered cranes, I saw them all,

How many ages gone, who knows?

I saw tall gilded Tartars pass

Behind their marble balustrades,

With maces made of beaten brass

And turquoise-hafted sabre-blades.

I heard the little golden bells

Blow faintly down the citadels,

And spied those ivory courts within

Through windows of transparent shells.

But past the fountain-pools I peered,

Beyond the birds, to that divan,

Where, fingering his tawny beard,

In silence dreamed the splendid Khan.

Green china bowls of wine were there,

And oranges and milk-of-mare,

While, stamping on his jewelled wrist,

A falcon climbed with eyes aflare.

He's gone; and with him, flowers and birds,

And old Venetians too, have died;

Yet burnt in Marco Polo's words,

Those unforgotten splendours hide . . .

And, tired of life's new-fashioned plan,

I long to be barbarian.

I'm sick of modern men, I wish

You were still living, Kublai-Khan!