Yet Sing Low

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!