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here over the rim of the sea, I was back in a narrow street, Where amber faces pass all day, Going to pay, going to pray, Going the same old human way They have gone for a thousand years, men say, In K'u-Kiang. And I heard the coolie cry for his fare, I heard the merchant praise his ware Of bronze and porcelain set to snare, In K'u-Kiang! I saw strange streaming signs in black With gold and crimson on their back-- Opiate signs in an opiate street; Where the slip and patter of felt-shod feet Is old as the sun; And the temple door As cool and dark as the night. And where dim lanterns, swinging there, As a lure to human grief and care, Half reveal and half conceal The ancestral gloom of the gods. I saw all this with sudden pang, As if by hashish swept or bhang, Because the sun, like a Chinese lantern, Set in a temple of clouds! TYPHOON (_At Hong-kong_) I was weary and slept on the Peak; The air clung close like a shroud, And ever the blue-fly at my ear Buzzed haunting, hot and loud; I awoke and the sky was dun With awe and a dread that soon Went shuddering thro my heart, for I knew That it meant typhoon! typhoon! In the harbour below, far down, The junks like fowl in a flock Were tossing in wingless terror, or fled Fluttering in from the shock. The city, a breathless bend Of roofs, by the water strewn, Lay silent and waiting, yet there was none Within it but said typhoon! Then it came, like a million winds Gone mad immeasurably, A torrid and tortuous tempest stung By rape of the fair South Sea. And it swept like a scud escaped From crater of sun or moon, And struck as no power of Heaven could, Or of Hell--typhoon! typhoon! And the junks were smitten and torn, The drowning struggled and cried, Or, dashed on the granite walls of the sea, In succourless hundreds died. Till I shut the sight from my eyes And prayed for my soul to swoon: If ever I see God's face, let it Be guiltless of that typhoon! PENANG I want to go back to Singapore And ship along the Straits, To a bungalow I know beside Penang; Where cocoanut palms along the shore Are waving, and the gates Of Peace shut
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