Page:The Unconquered Air, Coates, 1912.djvu/123

 Rh A paradise you say,

Stretching away—and endlessly away!—

A garden—lovelily abloom

With rice and silk and tea,

Cotton and yam and wheat, all fair to see,

And breathing forth an exquisite perfume

Of mingled mulberry and orange-blows,

Azalea and rose:

A garden, yet a tomb

Where myriads, sleeping, are remembered still

By myriads more, who glad their precepts keep,

And honour them in sleep.

What centuries of industry speak here!

What irrigating waters, silver-clear,

Skirting the uplands, rise, tier above tier!

What thronged canals, through the Delta plain extending

Hundreds of miles!

What junks, what bankside villages unending,

What cottages with brown and green roof-tiles!

What fanes! what wildwood temples without cease!

What unperturbed tranquility! what peace!

Far off there is a realm of wonder,—

Know you its name?

No region the wide heavens under

Could be the same!—