Project Gutenberg's Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse, by Thomas Burke

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Title: Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse

Author: Thomas Burke

Posting Date: October 25, 2008 [EBook #2161] Release Date: April, 2000

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONG BOOK OF QUONG LEE ***

The Song Book of Quong Lee

by

Thomas Burke

CONTENTS

  Buying and Selling
  The Power of Music
  The Lamplighter
  In Reply to an Invitation
  A Night-Piece
  A Smile Given In Passing
  Of a National Cash Register
  Under a Shining Window
  Exchange of Compliments
  A Song of Little Girls
  Of Shop Windows
  At the Feast of Lanterns
  One Service Breeds Another
  An Offer of a Lodging
  Of Two Dwellings
  Concerning English Gambling
  Of Politicians
  Of the Great White War
  At the Time of Clear Weather
  Parent and Child
  Of Worship and Conduct
  Going to Market
  A Portrait
  On a Saying of Mencius
  Dockside Noises
  Reproof and Approbation
  The Feast of Go Nien
  Directions for Making Tea
  Of Inaccessible Beauty
  Night and Day
  Of a Night in War-Time
  A Love Lesson
  A Rebuke
  Upstairs
  Footsteps
  Making a Feast
  The Case of Ho Ling
  An Upright Man
  Breaking-Point
  An English Gentleman

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 strange 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 torn it through,
  So that it shows ten thousand gaping rents
  Where the light comes in.

A Smile Given In Passing

   As I walked the street in the purring evening
   A little maid with yellow curls
   Tossed me a smile; and suddenly Pennyfields
   Grew from darkness to light, and the light of the stars
   Grew pale.

   I may not see her again, but I hold her smile in my heart,
   And she is with me in my shop and about the streets.
   My shop may tumble down;
   West India Dock may some time suffer a drought;
   Grief and Joy come for a day;
   And Hope and Fear, and Desire and Deed