If love be a flower, Pluck not that flower, Though flowers be cool And dear to thy brow. Thou happy fool, Thou shalt travel not far, Thou shalt lie down with this Cold flower for thy lover. He shall blind, he shall star Thine eyes. His cold kiss Thy mouth shall cover. If love be music, Hear not that music, Sing not that song, Though songs be few. Oh, very strong, Very close is the weaving Of notes among notes. Thou art bound and entangled. Sing, then, unbelieving, And sing till thy throat’s Soft song is strangled. If love be a lion, Flee not that lion, Let thy triumphing bones On the desert lie. On a desert of stones Thy bones shall smile, Comforted only By stark silence. Silence and dew Be thy crown, for thou Wert blind to a flower And deaf to music. Edward could hardly believe in his own existence when he found himself approaching China. Japan had been nothing. A country packed with color and little hills but empty of importance, being empty of Emily. All in vain the veil of Fujiyama floated over Yokohama; all in vain little pearl-like clouds were strung round the shoulders of Fujiyama in the indefinite sun. Edward only thought it was very like its pictures. When he rode in a little light ricksha through the centreless streets of Yokohama, he thought, “This is Edward Williams doing the things that Sunday school children at home see on lantern slides. But Our Hero remains detached, as in a dream.” He was glad to feel detached, to feel that, unlike the other passengers on the ship, he was not “doing the Orient.” He was looking for Emily. Afterwards he remembered more of Japan than he had realised at the time. He had been inconsistent enough to imitate the majority of the passengers and go by train to Kobe. He had even been chosen as escort by a stout, lonely lady passenger. “Women were more and more interested in Our Hero as he grew older and sadder. Women adore an atmosphere of tragedy.” It was true that Edward had scarcely been able to hear anything that the lonely lady said. It must therefore have been his “mystic air of remoteness” that had interested her. Or perhaps it was just that he was a man. Together they had spoiled for themselves the enchantment of the Kamikura Buddha by climbing coarsely up the steps inside him. Together, in a hired Ford car, they roared through the faery streets of Kyoto in broad daylight without pausing to hear the clicking pattens in the crowded quiet streets. They did not wait to see the crouching lion outlines of the temples against the multiplying stars of an evening sky. All the flowers of Japan passed Edward by. “I am no botanist,” he said proudly.