and tea, stored in his anteroom;
For priests the busy spiders hang festoons between his
fingers, and nest them in his yellow nails.
And darkness broods upon him.
The veil that hid the awful face of godhead from the
too impetuous gaze of worshippers serves in decay
to hide from deity the living face of man,
So god no longer sees his maker.

Let us drop the curtain and be gone!
I am old too, here in eternity.

Pa-tze-kiao


The Bridge

The Bridge of the Eight Scholars spans the canal narrowly.
On the gray stone of its arch are carvings in low relief,
and the curve of its span is pleasing to the eye.
No one knows how old is the Bridge of the Eight
Scholars.

In our house-boat we pass under it. The boatman
with the rat-like face twists the long broken-backed
oar, churning the yellow water, and we creep forward
steadily.
On the bridge the village is assembled. Foreign devils
are a rarity.
The gold-brown faces are not unfriendly, merely curious.