Song Writer Paid With Air

I sit on a white wood box

Smeared with the black name

Of a seller of white sugar.

The little brown table is so dirty

That if I had food

I do not think I could eat.

How can I promise violets drunken in wine

For your amusement,

How can I powder your blue cotton dress

With splinters of emerald,

How can I sing you songs of the amber pear,

Or pour for the finger-tips of your white fingers

Mingled scents in a rose agate bowl?

From the Chinese of J. Wing (nineteenth century).