Page:Frank Owen - Rare Earth, 1931.djvu/207

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Rare Earth

'On the Nanking Road
The whole world walks,
A thoroughfare to which
All wanderers come
To stroll in dreams
Upon the ground
Made eloquent
By countless ancestors.
Arab or Turk,
Armenian or Kurd,
All become brothers
On the Nanking Road,
Wayfarers all
Caught in a golden spell.'

To me the Nanking Road represents life. Countless feet, patter of feet, walking, walking, hurrying, strolling, feet, feet, feet. Do you not hear the rhythm of the patter, the poetry of it? Where are all the countless hordes going? Merchants, coolies, Englishmen, Americans, bankers, Mandarins, all sorts and conditions of men, paupers, affluent landowners meeting in the melting-pot of

China, stirred into one vast ribbon of hu-

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