it is told in the archive of the older mysteries of china that one of the house of tlang was cunning with sharpened iron and went to the green jade mountains and carved a green jade god. and this was in the cycle of the dragon, the seventy-eighth year.

and for nearly a hundred years men doubted the green jade god, and then they worshipped him for a thousand years; and after that they doubted him again, and the green jade god made a miracle and whelmed the green jade mountains, sinking them down one evening at sunset into the earth so that there is only a marsh where the green jade mountains were. and the marsh is full of the lotus.

by the side of this lotus marsh, just as it glitters at evening, walks li la ting, the chinese girl, to bring the cows home; she goes behind them singing of the river lo lang ho. and thus she sings of the river, even of lo lang ho: she sings that he is indeed of all rivers the greatest, born of more ancient mountains than even the wise men know, swifter than hares, more deep than the sea, the master of other rivers perfumed even as roses and fairer than the sapphires around the neck of a prince. and then she would pray to the river lo lang ho, master of rivers and rival of the heaven at dawn, to bring her down in a boat of light bamboo a lover rowing out of the inner land in a garment of yellow silk with turquoises at his waist, young and merry and idle, with a face as yellow as gold and a ruby in his cap with lanterns shining at dusk.

thus she would pray of an evening to the river lo lang ho as she went behind the cows at the edge of the lotus marshes and the green jade god under the lotus marshes was jealous of the lover that the maiden li la ting would pray for of an evening to the river lo lang ho, and he cursed the river after the manner of gods and turned it into a narrow and evil smelling stream.

and all this happened a thousand years ago, and lo lang ho is but a reproach among travelers and the story of that great river is forgotten, and what became of the maiden no tale saith though all men think she became a goddess of jade to sit and smile at a lotus on a lotus carven of stone by the side of the green jade god far under the marshes upon the peaks of the mountains, but women know that her ghost still haunts the lotus marshes on glittering evenings, singing of lo lang ho.

a city of wonder

past the upper corner of a precipice the moon rode into view. night had for some while now hooded the marvelous city. they had planned it to be symmetrical, its maps were orderly, near; in two dimensions, that is length and breadth, its streets met and crossed each other with regular exactitude, with all the dullness of the science of man. the city had laughed as it were and shaken itself free and in the third dimension had soared away to consort with all the careless, irregular things that know not man for their master.

yet even there, even at those altitudes, man had still clung to his symmetry, still claimed that these mountains were houses; in orderly rows the thousand windows stood watching each other precisely, all orderly, all alike, lest any should guess by day that there might be mystery here. so they stood in the daylight. the sun set, still they were orderly, as scientific and regular as the labour of only man and the bees. the mists darken at evening. and first the woolworth building goes away, sheer home and away from any allegiance to man, to take his place among mountains; for i saw him stand with the lower slopes invisible in the gloaming, while only his pinnacles showed up in the clearer sky. thus only mountains stand.

still all the windows of the other buildings stood in their regular rows—all side by side in silence, not yet changed, as though waiting one furtive moment to step from the schemes of man, to slip back to mystery and romance again as cats do when they steal on velvet feet away from familiar hearths in the dark of the moon.

night fell, and the moment came. someone lit a window, far up another shone with its orange glow. window by window, and yet not nearly all. surely if modern man with his clever schemes held any sway here still he would have turned one switch and lit them all together; but we are back with the older man of whom far songs tell, he whose spirit is kin to strange romances and mountains. one by one the windows shine from the precipices; some twinkle, some are dark; man's orderly schemes have gone, and we are amongst vast heights lit by inscrutable beacons.

i have seen such cities before, and i have told of them in the book of wonder.

here in new york a poet met a welcome.