| |
| THE MUSMEE has brown velvet eyes | |
| Curtain’d with satin, sleepily; | |
| You wonder if those lids would rise | |
| The newest, strangest sight to see; | |
| But when she chatters, laughs, or plays | 5 |
| Kôto, biwa, or samisen, | |
| No jewel gleams with brighter rays | |
| Than flash from those dark lashes then. | |
| |
| The Musmee has a small brown face, | |
| “Musk-melon seed” its perfect shape: | 10 |
| Jetty arch’d eyebrows; nose to grace | |
| The rosy mouth beneath; a nape, | |
| And neck, and chin, and smooth, soft cheeks | |
| Carv’d out of sunburn’d ivory, | |
| With teeth, which, when she smiles or speaks, | 15 |
| Pearl merchants might come leagues to see! | |
| |
| The Musmee’s hair could teach the night | |
| How to grow dark, the raven’s wing | |
| How to seem ebon! Grand the sight | |
| When, in rich masses, towering, | 20 |
| She builds each high black-marble coil, | |
| And binds the gold and scarlet in; | |
| And thrusts, triumphant, through the toil | |
| The Kanzâshi, her jewell’d pin. | |
| |
| The Musmee has wee, faultless feet, | 25 |
| With snow-white tabi trimly deck’d, | |
| Which patter down the city street | |
| In short steps, slow and circumspect; | |
| A velvet string between her toes | |
| Holds to its place th’ unwilling shoe: | 30 |
| Pretty and pigeonlike she goes, | |
| And on her head a hood of blue. | |
| |
| The Musmee wears a wondrous dress— | |
| Kimono, obi, imoji— | |
| A rosebush in Spring loveliness | 35 |
| Is not more color-glad to see! | |
| Her girdle holds her silver pipe, | |
| And heavy swing her long silk sleeves | |
| With cakes, love-letters, mikan ripe, | |
| Small change, musk-bag, and writing-leaves. | 40 |
| |
| The Musmee’s heart is slow to grief, | |
| And quick to pleasure, dance, and song; | |
| The Musmee’s pocket-handkerchief | |
| A square of paper! All day long | |
| Gentle, and sweet, and debonair | 45 |
| Is, rich or poor, this Asian lass: | |
| Heaven have her in its tender care, | |
| O medetó gozarimas! 1 | |
