Yet willingly you sit, lurching and half asleep. 
The boatmen shout one to another in nasal discords. 
    Lazily you preen your great wings, eagle wings,
    built for the sky;
And you yawn....

Faugh!  The sight of you sickens me, divers in inland
    filth! 
You grow lousy like your lords,
For you have forgotten the sea.

  Wusih

A Scholar

You sit, chanting the maxims of Confucius. 
On your head is a domed cap of black satin and your
    supple hands with their long nails are piously
    folded. 
You rock to and fro rhythmically. 
Your voice, rising and falling in clear nasal monosyllables,
    flows on steadily, monotonously, like the
    flowing of water and the flowering of thought. 
You are chanting, it seems, of the pious conduct of man
    in all ages,
And I know you for a scoundrel.

None the less the maxims of Confucius are venerable,
    and your voice pleasant. 
I listen attentively....

  Wusih

The Story Teller

In a corner of the market-place he sits, his face the target
    for many eyes. 
The sombre crowd about him is motionless.  Behind
    their faces no lamp burns; only their eyes glow
    faintly with a reflected light. 
For their eyes are on his face. 
It alone is alive, is vibrant, moving bronze under a sun
    of bronze. 
The taut skin, like polished metal, shines along his
    cheek and jaw.  His eyes cut upward from a slender
    nose, and his quick mouth moves sharply out
    and in.

Artful are the gestures of his mouth, elaborate and
    full of guile.  When he draws back the bow of
    his lips his face is like a mask of lacquer, set with
    teeth of pearl, fantastic, terrible.... 
What strange tale lives in the gestures of his mouth? 
Does a fox-maiden, bewitching, tiny-footed, lure a
    scholar to his doom?  Is an unfilial son tortured
    of devils?  Or does a decadent queen sport with
    her eunuchs?

I cannot tell. 
The faces of the people are wooden; only their eyes
    burn dully with a reflected light. 
I shall never know. 
I am alien ... alien.

  Nanking

The Well

The Second Well under Heaven lies at the foot of the
    Sacred Mountain. 
Perhaps the well is sacred because it is clean; or perhaps
    it is clean because it is sacred. 
I cannot tell.

At the bottom of the well are coppers and coins with
    square holes in them, thrown thither by devout
    hands.  They gleam enticingly through the shallow
    water. 
The people crowd about the well, leaning brown covetous
    faces above the coping as my copper falls
    slantwise to rest.