A Feast of Lanterns: Li Po: The Palace of Chao-Yang
A Feast of Lanterns, by L. Cranmer-Byng, [1916]
No more the peach-tree droops beneath the snow;
Spring draws her breath the willow boughs among.
The mango-bird now maddens into song,
And the swift-building swallows come and go.
’Tis the time of the long daydreams, when laughing maybeams,
On the mats of slothful revellers play;
’Tis the time of glancing wings, and the dancing
Of moon-moths whirling the hours away;
When the golden armoured guardians are withdrawn,
And pleasure haunts the rustling woods till dawn.
A warm and perfumed wind
Strays through the palace blind
And wandering prys into some dim retreat
Where every whisper stirs the heart to beat.
Now all the gay parterres
Are rivals for the sun
That drains their jewelled goblets one by one
From dimpled terrace and green dewy stairs.
And the water-lily renders to the spring
The wonder of her white unbosoming.
Far away in the tall woods there is an oriole calling;
There are shadows in the blue pavilion of dancers,
and music rising and falling,
In the month of peach-bloom and plum-bloom,
in the silken-screened recess
Love is the burden of sweet voices, and the brief
night melting, and the long caress.