| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| Ballades. III. Of Blue China |
| | | Andrew Lang (1844–1912) |
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| THERE’S a joy without canker or cark, | |
| There ’s a pleasure eternally new, | |
| ’T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark | |
| Of china that ’s ancient and blue; | |
| Unchipp’d, all the centuries through | 5 |
| It has pass’d, since the chime of it rang, | |
| And they fashion’d it, figure and hue, | |
| In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. | |
| These dragons (their tails, you remark, | |
| Into bunches of gillyflowers grew),— | 10 |
| When Noah came out of the ark, | |
| Did these lie in wait for his crew? | |
| They snorted, they snapp’d, and they slew, | |
| They were mighty of fin and of fang, | |
| And their portraits Celestials drew | 15 |
| In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. | |
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| Here ’s a pot with a cot in a park, | |
| In a park where the peach-blossoms blew, | |
| Where the lovers eloped in the dark, | |
| Lived, died, and were changed into two | 20 |
| Bright birds that eternally flew | |
| Through the boughs of the may, as they sang; | |
| ’T is a tale was undoubtedly true | |
| In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. | |
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ENVOY
Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do, | 25 |
| Kind critic; your “tongue has a tang,” | |
| But—a sage never heeded a shrew | |
| In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. | |
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