And, again he said, if we wished to find The mystic City that enshrined The stone so few on earth had found, We must be very brave; it lay A hundred haunted leagues away, Past many a griffon-guarded ground, In depths of dark and curious art, Where passion-flowers enfold apart The Temple of the Flaming Heart, The City of the Secret Wound. About the fragrant fall of day We saw beside the twisted way A blue-domed tea-house, bossed with gold; Hungry and thirsty we entered in: How should we know what Creeping Sin Had breathed in that Emperor’s ear who sold His own dumb soul for an evil jewel To the earth-gods, blind and ugly and cruel?... We drank sweet tea as his tale was told, In a garden of blue chrysanthemums, While a drowsy swarming of gongs and drums Out of the sunset dreamily rolled. But, as the murmur nearer drew, A fat black bonze, in a robe of blue, Suddenly at the gate appeared; And close behind, with that evil grin, _Was it Creeping Sin, was it Creeping Sin?_ The bonze looked quietly down and sneered. Our guide! Was he sleeping? We could not wake him, However we tried to pinch and shake him! Nearer, nearer the tumult came, Till, as a glare of sound and flame, Blind from a terrible furnace door Blares, or the mouth of a dragon, blazed The seething gateway: deaf and dazed With the clanging and the wild uproar We stood; while a thousand oval eyes Gapped our fear with a sick surmise. Then, as the dead sea parted asunder, The clamour clove with a sound of thunder In two great billows; and all was quiet. Gaunt and black was the palankeen That came in dreadful state between The frozen waves of the wild-eyed riot Curling back from the breathless track Of the Nameless One who is never seen: The close drawn curtains were thick and black; But wizen and white was the tall thin man As he rose in his sleep: His eyes were closed, his lips were wan, He crouched like a leopard that dares not leap. The bearers halted: the tall thin man, Fearfully dreaming, waved his fan, With wizard fingers, to and fro; While, with a whimper of evil glee, The Nameless Emperor’s mad Moonshee Stepped in front of us: dark and slow Were the words of the doom that he dared not name; But, over the ground, as he spoke, there came Tiny circles of soft blue flame; Like ghosts of flowers they began to glow, And flow like a moonlit brook between Our feet and the terrible palankeen.