Potiphar's Wife and Other Poems/The Emperor's Breakfast
THE EMPEROR'S BREAKFAST
Fifteen centuries ago,
Emperor Nintok of Japan
Walked upon his roof, at morning,
Watching if the work began
Well—to gild the cedar frieze
Of his palace galleries;
Well—to nail the silver plates
Of his inner palace gates;
For the Queen would have it so
Fifteen hundred years ago!
Walking on his roof, he spied
Streets and lanes and quarters teeming,
Saw his city spreading wide:
Ah! but poor and sad in seeming
Showed those lowly wooden huts
Underneath the King's gates gleaming.
Oh! he knows each wicket shuts
One world out and one world in:
This so great, and that so small,
Yet to those plain folks within
The little world their all in all!
Just then, the waiting maids bore through
The breakfast of King Nintoku.
Quoth the Emperor, gazing round,
"Wherefore—when my meats abound—
See I not more smoke arise
From these huts beneath mine eyes?
Chimneys jut into the air,
Yet no chimney-reek is there
Telling how the household pot
Bubbles glad with gohan[1] hot!
Gild me no more galleries
If my people lose the gold!
Let my doors unplated go
If the silver leaves them cold!
This city of all tax I ease
For three years: We decree it so!
From those huts there shall be smoke!"
Thus the Emperor Nintok spoke.
Three years sped. Upon his roof
That Monarch paced again. Aloof
His Empress hung, ill-pleased to see
The snows drip through her gallery,
The gates agape for cracks, and gray
With wear and weather. "Consort! say
If thus the Emperor of Japan
Should lodge, like some vile peasant man
Whose thatch leaks for a load of straw?"
"Princess august! what recks a flaw,"
Nintok replied, "in gate or wall
When, far and wide, those chimneys all
Fling their blue house-flags to the sky
Where the Gods count them? Thou and I
Have part in all the poor folks' health:
A people's weal makes a King's wealth!"
- ↑ Boiled rice.