Sisten Pwornnx and. other poems—By Ruth Tenney. With decorations by Ealth: Tenney anda foreword by Wis Excellency the "Chinese Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Besant. London. 8/- 'The principal poem- among. this very: charming: sheaf, as Mr.. Quo Tal-chi describes the book in' his sympathetic foreword, is based on the story mentioned in the Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking describing - the love tragedy of the village maiden whose beauty at tracted the patronage of the Son o Heaven. Her father. was the village distiller of wine and as the result of his daughter's unconscious enslave ment of the imperial "affections the poem says:
'To Mr, Li,: former distiller of wine, Now, by order of His Majesty "High Oficial of the 'Third. Grade" and "Deputy 'Diatret Magltrate' te pal Ten bogs of gold and, by the same decree, His daughter styled "Imperial: Con-cumine."
So read the mandate. Phoenix with head bowed Mounted the proferred*chalr. Velling her face, She drew the amber curtains close! about, Was borne into the night, ner once:
Tooked out Unilt-at dawn they set her at the fore, the sacred Temple of the low.
But virtue was defended by the loments. A. storm stunned the lady {nto unconsclourness and. despite the Imperial medicines "she had to be fiven en imperial funeral:
Four hundred years, four hundred years agal The gods guards, No jealous race there of green imperial tiles anid gold only ttle crumbltog wall of gray, Riduiy mound benealn a med stale iter Phoents reamiessh) sleeps the other verses In this book give Dlessant word sketches of China and Hiso a glimpse or two of Japan. For instance, here are the, opening verses of "The Story-Teller"
By the village of the Eight Blane Turtles at. the, Gate Of Mists ho sands, the Tale-Tetler, Like a bolt of red brocade His° tong dram, of-sheepskin. made, With "brown, homed. finger" nals, Me reps a measure ae he. walls!
Come, you village, people, come fiery Slon-ce atom ai uch sect. pleasures. Some and sample of my treasures!
It is easy to imagine Old China Hands purchasing this 1ltfle book for Xmas to remind them of the seenes they have left behind in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.