Poems (Forrest)/Fo-tai-ho-chung
FO-TAI-HO-CHUNG(The God of Contentment)
Oh, fat white god on the cedar shelf! I scarce dare look in your cheery face,For every crease of your body cries:"When Man so long in the dark earth lies Why lose one moment of light and grace?
"Get fat—like me—on your happiness! When the end is come, then your ghost may stayIn some lush corner of fecund earth,Waiting the call to a bright rebirth, And planning jollity all the way."
With the soles of his feet upturned he sits, One hand is holding a wreath of grass,He smiles secure thro' our changing hours,For his dreams are threaded with deathless flowers— There is only gold in his hour-glass.
Out of the rainbow he stole a prism, That the light of his skies be never dim;His soul is a well of happinessTill the world seems naught but a huge wine-press Squeezing the joy of life for him.
Hugging his goodly paunch he sits, And everywhere is a jest discerned,No lean saint he, with a begging bowl,He stirs the vat of his bubbling soul With mem'ries plucked where a quick blood burned.
I am ashamed—who wept last night— Till the moon was blurred in a mist of greyTo look at his round, contented selfHugging his paunch on the cedar shelf And smiling out of the dusk—at day.
But . . . he is china . . . suppose a charm Could work for me from his kind mouth spoken?Some sorcery of the OrientTill I be made porcelain . . . white . . . content . . . For only once can such gods be broken.