This land of ancients grows on me <br />Like a soft moss, damp-oozed in time, <br />Sad breezes churn each soul, unfree, <br />And sweep me over, like some tide. <br /> <br />Strange voices echo from dim pasts <br />Long littered with dead Mandarins <br />I hear, I understand them less <br />But feel their presence in old sins. <br /> <br />While grace and beauty walk each street <br />As daughters fan their coal-black hair <br />The future calls to them, at last <br />And the world waits, to meet them there. <br /> <br />25 October 2005<br /><br />David Lewis Paget<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/china-2/
