Chapter II

IN A CHAIR. (_Foo-chow_.)

From the bright and blinding sunshine,
From the whirling locust's song,
Into the dark and narrow fissures
Of the streets I am borne along.

Here and there dusky-beaming
A sun-shaft broadens and drops
On the brown bare crowd slow-passing
The crowd of the open shops.

We move on over the bridges
With their straight-hewn blocks of stone.
And their quaint grey animal figures,
And the booths the hucksters own.

Behind a linen awning
Sits an ancient wight half-dead,
And a little dear of a girl is
Examining--his head.

On a bended bamboo shouldered,
Bearing a block of stone,
Two worn-out coolies half-naked
Utter their grunting groan.

Children, almond-eyed beauties,
Impossibly mangy curs,
Take part in the motley stream of
Insouciant passengers.

This is the dream, the vision
That comes to me and greets--
_The vision of Retribution_
_In the labyrinthine streets_!

III. "CASTE."

These Chinese toil and yet they do not starve,
And they obey, and yet they are not slaves.
It is the "free-born" fuddled Englishmen
That grovel rotting in their living graves.

These Chinese do not fawn with servile lips;
They lift up equal eyes that ask and scan.
Their degradation has escaped at least
That choicest curse of all--the gentleman!