THERE’S a joy without canker or cark, <br />There ’s a pleasure eternally new, <br />’T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark <br />Of china that ’s ancient and blue; <br />Unchipp’d, all the centuries through <br />It has pass’d, since the chime of it rang, <br />And they fashion’d it, figure and hue, <br />In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. <br />These dragons (their tails, you remark, <br />Into bunches of gillyflowers grew),— <br />When Noah came out of the ark, <br />Did these lie in wait for his crew? <br />They snorted, they snapp’d, and they slew, <br />They were mighty of fin and of fang, <br />And their portraits Celestials drew <br />In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. <br /> <br />Here ’s a pot with a cot in a park, <br />In a park where the peach-blossoms blew, <br />Where the lovers eloped in the dark, <br />Lived, died, and were changed into two <br />Bright birds that eternally flew <br />Through the boughs of the may, as they sang; <br />’T is a tale was undoubtedly true <br />In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. <br /> <br />ENVOY <br /> <br />Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do, <br />Kind critic; your “tongue has a tang,” <br />But—a sage never heeded a shrew <br />In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.<br /><br />Andrew Lang<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballades-iii-of-blue-china/
