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Emperor Tang -- Skeptic
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CLOSER than my body's shadow
Follows the blind nameless One,
Carrying in his tightened, yellow fist
Time, the thin sputtering candle,
And in his swollen cheeks
Death, the grey wind.
So fill and refill my deep, golden horn
With the strongest wine,
O wise men of China,
Before declaiming in magnificent verse
My immortality,
That I may nod,
My eyes glittering with dreams,
And believe --
Follows the blind nameless One,
Carrying in his tightened, yellow fist
Time, the thin sputtering candle,
And in his swollen cheeks
Death, the grey wind.
So fill and refill my deep, golden horn
With the strongest wine,
O wise men of China,
Before declaiming in magnificent verse
My immortality,
That I may nod,
My eyes glittering with dreams,
And believe --
Paul Eldridge
