I <br />The narrow streets cut into the wide highway at Choan, <br />Dark oxen, white horses, <br />drag on the seven coaches with outriders. <br />The coaches are perfumed wood, <br />The jewelled chair is held up at the crossway, <br />Before the royal lodge: <br />A glitter of golden saddles, awaiting the princess; <br />They eddy before the gate of the barons. <br />The canopy embroidered with dragons <br />drinks in and casts back the sun. <br />Evening comes. <br />The trappings are bordered with mist. <br />The hundred cords of mist are spread through <br />and double the trees, <br />Night birds, and night women, <br />Spread out their sounds through the gardens. <br /> <br />II <br />Birds with flowery wing, hovering butterflies <br />crowd over the thousand gates, <br />Trees that glitter like jade, <br />terraces tinged with silver, <br />The seed of a myriad hues, <br />A net-work of arbours and passages and covered ways, <br />Double towers, winged roofs, <br />border the net-work of ways: <br />A place of felicitous meeting. <br />Riu's house stands out on the sky, <br />with glitter of colour <br />As Butei of Kan had made the high golden lotus <br />to gather his dews, <br />Before it another house which I do not know: <br />How shall we know all the friends <br />whom we meet on strange roadways?<br /><br />Ezra Pound<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-idea-of-choan-by-rosoriu/
