Stars of the Desert/Opium: Li's riverside hut at Taku
Opium: Li's riverside hut at Taku
The room is bare, the paper windows shiver,
Beneath the ill-hung door, the sleet blows free,
Yet here, Delight flows forth, a gentle river,
To saturate my soul with ecstasy!
I lie upon the heated Kang, quiescent,
Lulled by the warmth of lighted straw below,
While Li, the golden-tinted adolescent,
Blue-clad and silent, passes to and fro.
Li, with his well-cut lips and supple fingers,
His crudely lidded eyes, that seem to gaze
Back through ten thousand years of thought, where lingers
Some misty splendour of the old, old days.
Free from the plait, his loosened sable tresses
In silken waves, below the knee, descend.
Bringing the opium pipe, he deftly presses
The viscous drug upon the needle's end.
Lights it, inserts it in the pipe beside me,
Then through my lips the magic vapour streams,
And Life and Love, that seldom satisfied me,
Meet me with lovely faces in my dreams.
Life at his brightest, flushed and crowned with flowers,
Brings gifts no mortal, waking, e'er possessed,
Exquisite Chances, and Enchanted Hours,
While Love,—Love brings me you, to share my rest!