Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse | Page 3

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The Song Book of Quong Lee
by Thomas Burke
Buying and Selling
Throughout the day I sit behind the counter of my shop?And the odours of my country are all about me--?Areca nut, and betel leaf, and manioc,?Lychee and suey sen,?Li-un and dried seaweed,?Tchah and sam-shu;?And these carry my mind to half-forgotten days?When tales were plentiful and care was hard to hold.
All day I sell for trifling sums the wares of my own land,?And buy for many cash such things as people wish to sell,?That I may sell them again to others,?With some profit to myself.
One night a white-skinned damsel came to me?And offered, with fair words, something she wished to sell.
Now if I desire a jacket I can buy it with coin,?Or barter for it something of my stock.?If I desire rice-spirit, that, too, I can buy;?And elegant entertainments and delights are all to be had for cash.
But there is one good thing above all precious,?That no man may buy.?And though I buy readily most things that I desire,?This thing that the white maid offered at my own price?I would not buy.
The Power of Music
In the little room behind my shop?I refresh myself of an evening with my machine-that-sings.
Two songs has my machine-that-sings:?And these are 'Hitchy Koo' and 'We don't want to lose you.'
When, in the evening, a friend honours me with a visit,?I engage his ears with the air of 'Hitchy Koo';?But when I am afflicted with a visit?>From those who fill me with a spirit of no-satisfaction,?I command my machine-that-sings?To render the music of 'We don't want to lose you.'
The noise that at this moment greets the ear?Of the elegant visitor to this despicable hovel?Is the incomparable music of 'Hitchy Koo';?And the price of this person's tea, mister,?Is but a paltry six shillings the pound.
The Lamplighter
The dark days now begin, when in afternoon?The Great Night Lantern makes a razor-edge?Of black and white in the streets.?And one comes, called the Lamplighter,?And the straight stiff lamps of these stiff London streets, At his quick touch burst into light.
At this shy hour?I see from my unshaded window?Bright girls, hair flowing, go by with shuttered faces,?Holding close captive their warm insurgent bosoms.?And then, at the corner,?Some slender lad of bold and upright carriage?Greets them, and the shuttered lanterns of their faces?Burst with light at the touch of the lamplighter.
Oh, kind ingenious lamplighter,?Will you please step this way?
In Reply to an Invitation
Don't think of me as one of no courtesy?O elegant and refined foreign one,?If I do not accept your high-minded invitation?To drink rice-spirit with you?At the little place called The Blue Lantern, near Pennyfields. Please don't regard me as lacking in gracious behaviour,?Or as insufferably ignorant of the teachings of the Book of Rites
But I am sojourning here in a strnage land,?And am not fully informed of the usages of your dignified people.
As the wise Mencius observed in one of his inspired hours,?Doubtless thinking forward to situation of this person:?Child who has once suffered unpleasant sensation of burning, Ever afterward reluctant to approach stove.?Wherefore, as this person once accepted an invitation,?In words as affable and polished as yours, Mister,?To drink rice-spirit at The Blue Lantern,?And was there subjected to a custom of this country?Of an entirely disturbing and unpleasing nature,?Known as Ceremony of Confidence,?He has, since that day, viewed The Blue Lantern?With a feeling of most decided repugnance.
A Night-Piece
I climbed the other day up to the roof?Of the commanding and palatial Home for Asiatics?And looked across the city at the hour of no-light.
Across great space of dark I looked,?But the skirt of darkness had a hundred rents,?Made by the lights of many people's homes.
My life is a great skirt of darkness,?But human kindliness has