Prelude

You that have known the wonder zoneOf islands far away;You that have heard the dinky birdAnd roamed in rich Cathay;You that have sailed o'er unknown seasTo woods of Amfalula treesWhere craggy dragons play:Oh, girl or woman, boy or man,You've plucked the Flower of Old Japan!

Do you remember the blue stream;The bridge of pale bamboo;The path that seemed a twisted dreamWhere everything came true;The purple cherry-trees; the houseWith jutting eaves below the boughs;The mandarins in blue,With tiny, tapping, tilted toes,And curious curved mustachios?

The road to Old Japan! you cry,And is it far or near?Some never find it till they die;Some find it everywhere;The road where restful Time forgetsHis weary thoughts and wild regretsAnd calls the golden yearBack in a fairy dream to smileOn young and old a little while.

Some seek it with a blazing sword,And some with old blue plates;Some with a miser's golden hoard;Some with a book of dates;Some with a box of paints; a fewWhose loads of truth would ne'er pass throughThe first, white, fairy gates;And, oh, how shocked they are to findThat truths are false when left behind!

Do you remember all the talesThat Tusitala told,When first we plunged thro' purple valesIn quest of buried gold?Do you remember how he saidThat if we fell and hurt our headOur hearts must still be bold,And we must never mind the painBut rise up and go on again?

Do you remember? Yes; I knowYou must remember still:He left us, not so long ago,Carolling with a will,Because he knew that he should lieUnder the comfortable skyUpon a lonely hill,In Old Japan, when day was done;"Dear Robert Louis Stevenson."

And there he knew that he should findThe hills that haunt us now;The whaups that cried upon the windHis heart remembered how;And friends he loved and left, to roamFar from the pleasant hearth of home,Should touch his dreaming brow;Where fishes fly and birds have fins,And children teach the mandarins.

Ah, let us follow, follow farBeyond the purple seas;Beyond the rosy foaming bar,The coral reef, the trees,The land of parrots, and the wildThat rolls before the fearless childIts ancient mysteries:Onward and onward, if we can,To Old Japan--to Old Japan.