The Ballade of Truthful Charles, and Other Poems

The Heathen Chinee

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O Time, thou shalt not find in any land Till, cast out of thine hand, The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee, Another woman fashioned like as this. O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in her Was made a goodly thing; Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss, With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier Than lips of amorous roses in late spring.

By night there stood over against my bed Queen Venus with a hood striped gold and black, Both sides drawn fully back From brows wherein the sad blood failed of red, And temples drained of purple and full of death. Her curled hair had the wave of sea-water And the sea's gold in it.

Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth.

Ballade [I die of thirst beside the fountain]

Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her, And pearl and purple and amber on her feet. Upon her raiment of dyed sendaline Were painted all the secret ways of love And covered things thereof, That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine; Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves, And brides that kept within the bride-chamber Their garment of soft shame, And weeping faces of the wearied loves That swoon in sleep and awake wearier, With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame.

The tears that through her eyelids fell on me Made mine own bitter where they ran between As blood had fallen therein, She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and see If any glad thing be or any good Now the best thing is taken forth of us; Even she to whom all praise Was as one flower in a great multitude, One glorious flower of many and glorious, One day found gracious among many days: Even she whose handmaiden was Love--to whom At kissing times across her stateliest bed Kings bowed themselves and shed Pale wine, and honey with the honeycomb, And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering; Even she between whose lips the kiss became As fire and frankincense; Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king, Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame, Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.

Then I beheld, and lo on the other side My lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead.

Sweet still, but now not red, Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died. And sweet, but emptied of the blood's blue shade, The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes. And sweet, but like spoilt gold, The weight of colour in her tresses weighed. And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes, The body that was clothed with love of old. Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves Rain-rotten in rank lands, Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves And grass that fades ere any of it be mown; And when thy bosom is filled full thereof Seek out Death's face ere the light altereth, And say "My master that was thrall to Love Is become thrall to Death.

But make no sojourn in thy outgoing; For haply it may be That when thy feet return at evening Death shall come in with thee.

A Ballad of Dreamland

O love Thou knowest If she were god to see. Great poem on love and affection, the sadness, the life and all. A wonderful imaginative poem. I mostly like the para ten though the poem in general is very much interesting.

Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss, With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier Than lips of amorous roses in late spring. Lots to say about this one-The love is shown by the length of this poem, content and repitition. Gold deep meaning is mentioned abundantly-royalty. The more recent economic downturn in California had made tensions even worse. The poem was also frequently parodied.

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The incident was one of several in a long rivalry between the two authors. It inspired a series of west coast songwriters, for example, to produce songs which looked at Chinese immigrants through negative stereotypes and questioned their place in America. Some used Harte's poem word-for-word. The title character was depicted with four aces falling from his sleeve. The influence continued for decades and spread into other authors' writings. In , Earl Derr Biggers considered the same quote from the poem as a title for his sixth Charlie Chan novel, inspired by a movie studio executive's suggestion, "Incidentally, could you use the Bret Harte—heathen Chinee phrase of 'Ways that are dark' as a possible title for some forthcoming exploits?

Susan Hill on the poetry of Charles Causley | Books | The Guardian

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Depicting the Chinese, — Literature, History, and Culture. University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Opening the American Literary West.

University of Oklahoma Press, The Penguin Press, China and the International System, Power, Presence, and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation. State University of New York Press, University Press of Mississippi, Nineteenth-Century Literature , Vol. Manufacturing the Modern Patron in Victorian California: Ashgate Publishing Company, Rutgers University Press, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Works by Bret Harte.

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