A dinner party, coffee, tea,
Sandwich, or supper, all may be
In their way pleasant. But to me
Not one of these deserves the praise
That welcomer of new-born days,
A breakfast, merits; ever giving
Cheerful notice we are living
Another day refreshed by sleep,
When its festival we keep.
Now although I would not slight
Those kindly words we use ‘Good night’,
Yet parting words are words of sorrow,
And may not vie with sweet ‘Good Morrow’,
With which again our friends we greet,
When in the breakfast-room we meet,
At the social table round,
Listening to the lively sound
Of those notes which never tire,
Of urn, or kettle on the fire.
Sleepy Robert never hears
Or urn, or kettle; he appears
When all have finished, one by one
Dropping off, and breakfast done.
Yet has he too his own pleasure,
His breakfast hour’s his hour of leisure;
And, left alone, he reads or muses,
Or else in idle mood he uses
To sit and watch the venturous fly,
Where the sugar’s piled high,
Clambering o’er the lumps so white,
Rocky cliffs of sweet delight.

Yee Bow was killed by the son of Rev. Wiley;
And they wound his pigtail around his head,
And buried him near Chase Henry.
No laundry for me,
But the Golden Pheasant,
Where I served steak as well as chop suey.
And I wore their clothes and cut my queue,
And read the magazines and the dailies,
No longer a Chinese heathen.
But did I forget my City of Flowers?
No! For I lighted my pipe and dreamed:
And the waterspouts on Bindle's Block
Were twisted dolphins on temple roofs;
The ash barrels in the alley became
Buddhas in bronze by an ivied wall;
The water tower seemed like a pagoda
At Ta-Li Fu, and the lilac bushes
Spread into courtyards full of blossoms.
Ding! went the register, boom went the drum,
As the Salvation Army passed and shouted
The blood of the Lamb…but I heard the bells
And gongs of Buddha, on high, far away,
Where a poppy moon hangs over the hills
As yellow as moth wings, under a sky
As white as the shrines or the glistening streams
In the Valley of Fragrant Springs!