Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse | Page 6

would not see this worn and tattered one,?This lean and sorrowful son of the waterside.?He would not see this parchment face,?This figure without lustre.?He would see his little son who left him long ago;?For love would brush away the husk of years,?And leave a little child.
Of Worship and Conduct
At the corner of the Causeway on every seventh evening?Gathers the band of Salvation Army,?Making big noise of Washed-in-Blood-of-Lamb.
At temple in East India Dock Road?Men gather in white clothes, and sing,?And march with candles and pray to Lady.
At shop in Pennyfields, many times a day,?This person pays respect to Big Man Joss,?And burns to him prayer-papers and punk-sticks.
And all day long men toil for wife and child;?Wife suffer and stint to make bigger plate for child;?Child beg in street to get food for sick mother;?Sister wear ragged clothes for sake of little brother.?And none of these has bowed to Joss,?Or marched with candle,?Or washed in blood of Lamb.
Going to Market
Good morning, Mister, how do you do??I am going to Salmon Lane, to the cheap market for dainty foods. Won't you come with me, Mister?
I shall buy meat and fish and a loaf of bread,?And fresh fruit and potatoes;?I shall buy a cluster of flowers and a bottle of wine,?Some butter and some jam,?And biscuits, and nuts and candy.?For I give an English feast to-night to a friend with yellow curls, And every dish will be cooked by me.
Into the pot will go sharp spices,?To flavour your English meats:?Cayenne and thyme, and sage and salt,?A sprig of parsley for garnish,?And some delicate bamboo shoots.?But the sweetest spice will not be seen,?It will leap from my heart to the pot as I stir it.?I am going to gather it on the way to the market?>From my own sweet thoughts and from elegant conversation?With notable misters.?Won't you come with me?
A Portrait
How shall I write of you, little friend,?To my father on the River of Serenity??I will tell him of your twenty yellow curls?Tumbling in a cascade about your shoulders;?Your bright mouth and fine brow,?Lit by yet brighter eyes,?Where fireflies dance;?How in your cheeks you hold?The colours of the flower before its leaves unclose;?How the tones of your voice, sounding in my ears,?Float before my eyes like strings of lanterns;?How, when I look closely upon you,?I see my thoughts like a white river in your eyes;?How, as I walk down the street where you have trod,?The very stones are to me the smiles that you scatter as you pass. How your look thrills my heart as a guitar thrills to the touch.
And I will tell him that you are not for me,?For you are white and I am yellow;?Unless, perchance, shame and disgrace fall upon you,?As it falls upon some girls of this quarter,?And your neighbours and friends pass by the other way.?Then, perhaps, it would be permitted to me?To render service to you.
On a Saying of Mencius
That was well said of Mencius:?The misfortunes of one are the entertainment of many.
When Prosperity attended the occasions of this person,?And his heart smiled within him,?He was regarded and received on all sides by his fellows?With attitudes of dignity and expressions of mandarin-like solemnity, And his laughing heart could fetch no smile?To the faces of those about him.
But when, on a recent manifestation of evil spirits,?He was hailed before those in authority?And commanded to pay very many taels,?For the fault of possessing some morsels of chandu, the Great Tobacco, And his heart was heavy and dark as a raincloud within him, He was received on all sides?With attitudes of mirth and expressions of no-gravity.
Dockside Noises
There are in Limehouse many sounds;?A hundred different sounds by day and night.
The crash and mutter of the dockside railway,?The noise of quarrel, the noise of fist on face,?My country's songs, guitars, and gramophones,?The noise of boot on stone,?The noise of women bargaining their flesh,?The noise of singers in the ships,?Sounds of threat and sounds of fear,?Blasts of hammer and steel and iron,?The scream of syren, the wail of hooter,?The clangour of angry bells,?The boom of guns, the clatter of factories,?The panic of feet, and malevolent words.
All these sounds I know, and they disturb me not.?The sound that is to me most terrible,?That snatches slumber from me,?Is the sound that is most common:?The scream of a child at night.
Reproof and Approbation
Because I gave a piece of silk?To my friend of the golden curls,?One (may the dogs devour him) threw a stone at my window,?And hooted and jeered and made base noise with his mouth.?Nay, worse, this son of a sea-slug (may his line perish)?Hurled hard names at my friend,?Calling her Tart, and Flusey, and Tom; and, as we walked together, Cried: `Watcher, Nancy, who's yer friend with the melon face And the bug-eaten cabbage-leaf on his head?'
The lean and scurvy dog that slinks about Pennyfields?Flew