A Short Poem from 1914 – Old China
Posted: February 23rd, 2013 | 3 Comments »A short and sweet, and rather dated, poem today – unattributed I’m afraid but first published in Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, on April 1, 1914.
Old China
Little Wun-lee’s father, Nang-Poo,
Let her do just what she wanted to do;
Made her processions with peacocky banners
In the most regal and lavish of manners.
Little Wun-lee’s father, Nang-Poo,
Was a magician who lived at Foo-choo.
Now if you possess a magician of cunning
Nothing you want should be out of the running.
Little Wun-lee had all sorts of things—
Fly-away carpets and vanishing-rings,
Djinn as her footmen, and gem-spraying fountains,
And lovely snow-leopards from ghost-haunted mountains.
Little Wun-lee, combing her hair,
Saw a blue butterfly float through the air—
Saw a blue butterfly flicker and settle
On an azalea’s rosy pink petal.
Little Wun-lee said: “By the Mings,
That for your fly-away carpets and rings!
Peacocks and palanquins? Powers and dominions?
I’ll have a pair of blue butterfly’s pinions!”
“Little Wun-lee,” answered Nang Poo,
“That’s the one trick no magician can do;
Never did wizard of land, air or water
Magic blue wings on a little white daughter.”
Little Wun-lee, dainty and dear,
Cried for a day and a week and a year—
Cried till she died of a Thwarted Ambition,
And nobody cared but Nang-Poo, the magician.
Little Wun-lee, little Wun-lee,
He buried her ‘neath the azalea tree;
And the burnished blue butterflies flicker and hover,
And the rosy pink petals fall lightly above her.
Thank you so much for this.My mother, who was born in 1905, used to recite this beautifully, and I loved listening to it. She lost her copy of the poems she learnt (at school-elocution lessons), but her lifelong school friend realised how much the poems meant to her and gave my mother her own copy which is in my possession. Best wishes, Tina
My mother, born 1902, also recited this poem to my sister and I when we were about 11 and 12., I remembered, as the years went by, less and less of the poem but always remembered the last four lines. So glad that there is some- one else that also had a similar memory from childhood.
thank you Barbara, I’m amazed anyone remembers this rather obscure little ditty….Paul