Classic Poem

Chinese magicians had conjured their chance,
And they hunted, with their hooded birds of glee,
The heat that rises from the summer-grass
And shakes against the sea.
And when they had caught a wide expanse
In nets of careful wizardry,
They coloured it like molten glass
For roofs, imperially,
With blue from a cavern, green from a morass
And yellow from weeds in the heart of the sea,
And they laid long rows on the dwellings of romance
In perfect alchemy—
And before they ascended like a peal of brass,
They and their tiptoeing hawks of glee
Had topped all China with a roof that slants
And shakes against the sea.