priceless things the collector has, so that in many days he could not look upon them all. Every morning his seven men-servants dress him, and every evening they undress him. Behind their almond eyes move green sidelong shadows. In this silent courtyard the collector lives. He is not an old man but he is lonely.

Peking

Sunday in the British Empire: Hong Kong

In the aisle of the cathedral it lies, an army rifle of
    the latest type.
It is laid on the black and white mosaic, between the
    carved oaken pews and the strip of brown carpet
    in the aisle.
A crimson light from the stained-glass window yonder
    glints on the blue steel of its barrel, and the
    khaki of its shoulder-strap blends with the brown
    of the carpet.

The stiff backs of its owner and a hundred like him are very still. The vested choir chants prettily. Then the bishop speaks: "O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord,… defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies." "Amen!" say the owners of the khaki backs.

The light has shifted a little. On the blue steel barrel
    of the rifle the glint is turquoise now.
That will be from the robe of the shepherd in the window
    yonder, He of the quiet eyes….

Hong Kong

On the Canton River Boat

Up and down, up and down, paces the sentry. He is dressed in a uniform of khaki and his socks are green. Over his shoulder is slung a rifle, and from his belt hang a pistol and cartridge pouch. He is, I think, Malay and Chinese mixed.

Behind him the rocky islands, hazed in blue, the yellow sun-drenched water, the tropic shore, pass as a background in a dream. He only is sweltering reality. Yet he is here to guard against a nightmare, an anachronism, something that I cannot grasp. He is guarding me from pirates.

Piracy! The very name is fantastic in my ears, colored
    like a toucan in the zoo.
And yet the ordinance is clear: "Four armed guards,
    strong metal grills behind the bridge, the engine-room
    enclosed—in case of piracy."

The socks of the sentry are green.
Up and down, up and down he paces, between the
    bridge and the first of the life-boats.
In my deck chair I grow restless.

Am I then so far removed from life, so wrapped in
    cotton wool, so deep-sunk in the soft lap of civilization,
    that I cannot feel the cold splash of truth?
It is a disquieting thought—for certainly piracy seems
    as fantastic as ever.

The socks of the sentry annoy me. They are too
    green for so hot a day.
And his shoes squeak.
I should feel much cooler if he wouldn't pace so.
Piracy!

Somewhere on the River

The Altar of Heaven

Beneath the leaning, rain-washed sky this great white
    circle—beautiful!

In three white terraces the circle lies, piled one on
    one toward Heaven. And on each terrace the
    white balustrade climbs in aspiring marble, etched
    in cloud.
And Heaven is very near.
For this is worship native as the air, wide as the
    wind, and poignant as the rain,
Pure aspiration, the eternal dream.

Beneath the leaning sky this great white circle!

Peking

The Chair Ride

The coolies lift and strain;
My chair creaks rhythmically.
It is not yet morning and the live darkness pushes
    about us, a greedy darkness that has swallowed
    even the stars.
In all the world there is left only my chair, with the
    tiny horn lantern before it.
There are also, it is true, the undersides of trees in
    the lantern-light and the stony path that flows
    past ceaselessly.
But these things flit and change.
Only I and the chair and the darkness are permanent.
    We have been moving so since time was in the
    womb.

The seat of my chair is of wicker.
It is not unlike an invalid chair, and I, in it, am swaddled
    like an invalid, wrapped in layer on layer
    of coddling wool.
But there are no wheels to my chair. I ride on the
    steady feet of four queued coolies.
The tramp of their lifted shoes is the rhythm of being,
    throbbing in me as my own heart throbs.

Save for their feet the bearers are silent. They move softly through the live darkness. But now and again I am shifted skilfully from one shoulder to the other.

The breath of the coolies is short.
They strain, and in spite of the cold I know they are
    sweating.
It is wicked of course!
My five dollars ought not to buy life.
But it is all they understand;
And even I am not precisely comfortable.

The darkness is thinning a little.
On either side loom featureless black hills, their summits
    sharp and ragged.
The Great Wall is somewhere hereabouts.

My chair creaks rhythmically.
In another year it will be day.

Ching-lung-chiao

The Sikh Policeman: A British Subject

Of what, I wonder, are you thinking?
It is something beyond my world I know, something
    that I cannot guess.
Yet I wonder.

Of nothing Chinese can you be thinking, for you hate
    them with an automatic hatred—the hatred of
    the well-fed for the starved, of the warlike for
    the weak.
When they cross you, you kick them, viciously, with
    the drawing back of your silken beard, your
    black, black beard, from your white teeth.
With a snarl you kick them, sputtering curses in short
    gutturals.
You do not even speak their tongue, so it cannot be
    of them you are thinking.

Yet neither do you speak the tongue of the master whom you serve. No more do you know of us the "Masters" than you know of them the "dogs." We are above you, they below. And between us you stand, guarding the street, erect and splendid, lithe and male. Your scarlet turban frames your neat black head, And you are thinking.

Or are you?
Perhaps we only are stung with thought.
I wonder.

Shanghai

The Lady of Easy Virtue: An American

Lotus, So they called your name. Yet the green swelling pod, the fruit-like seeds and heavy flower, are nothing like to you. Rather, like a pitcher plant you are, for hope and all young wings are drowned in you.

Your slim body, here in the café, moves brightly in
    and out. Green satin, and a dance, white wine
    and gleaming laughter, with two nodding earrings—these
    are Lotus.
And in the painted eyes cold steel, and on the lips a
    vulgar jest;
Hands that fly ever to the coat lapels, familiar to
    the wrists and to the hair of men. These too
    are Lotus.
And what more—God knows!

You too perhaps