The
scent brought remembrance to my heart, and tears flowed from
beneath my eyelids. The delicate yellow blossoms seemed to speak
to me from out their golden throats, and I yearned to hold within my
arms all this beauty of the earth flowering beneath my feet. We
stayed until the darkness came, and up to the blue night rose from all
the fields "that great soft, bubbling chorus which seems the very voice
of the earth itself-- the chant of the frogs." When we turned back and
saw the vulgar houses, with straight red tops and piercing chimneys, I
shut my eyes and in a vision saw the blue-grey houses with their
curved-up, tilted roofs nestling among the groves of bamboo, and I felt
that if it were my misfortune to spend many moons in this great alien
city, my heart would break with longing for the beautiful home I love.
I felt sympathy with Kang Tang-li, of my father's province, who heard
of a new God in Anhui. He had eaten bitter sorrow and he felt that the
old Gods had forgotten him and did not hear his call, so he walked
two long days' journey to find this new God who gave joy and peace to
those who came to him. He arrived at eventime, the sun was setting
in a lake of gold, but even with its glory it could not change the ugly
square-built temple, with no curves or grace to mark it as a
dwelling-place of Gods.
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