| |
| FROM sullen skies a cheerless rain | |
| That floods the half-choked gutter drain; | |
| Ramshackle houses, brick and wood, | |
| Where hides Disease with shroud and hood; | |
| Worn doors, uncurtained window-panes | 5 |
| And mucky streets and garbage lanes— | |
| And this is—this is Chinatown. | |
| |
| Pattering feet of Chinamen, | |
| Holima, Ching-la, | |
| Ribald girls of Chinatown; | 10 |
| Joss! how foul they are. | |
| |
| Within the ever-swinging door | |
| The halls uncarpeted, where pour | |
| The pungent, sickening opium fumes | |
| From out the poorly furnished rooms, | 15 |
| Where spots of gilt and red attest | |
| What dingy finery is the rest— | |
| In Chinatown, in Chinatown. | |
| |
| Raising Cain in Chinatown, | |
| Drink, and dope and toss; | 20 |
| Day and night are but a day, | |
| Not a God, but Joss. | |
| |
| The Joss, a paint-daubed idol pent, | |
| The third floor of a tenement, | |
| Draped faded silk and tawdry gold, | 25 |
| Where wrinkled priests their service hold | |
| While barbarous drum and banjos whine, | |
| Make thoughts infernal not divine— | |
| Within the fane of Chinatown. | |
| |
| Pictures of pagodas, too; | 30 |
| Tea-fields stretching down | |
| Lumbering junks and sampan boats— | |
| This is Chinatown. | |
| |
| And women old before their time, | |
| With faces cursed by drink or crime, | 35 |
| From many open casements peer | |
| At huddling Chinamen who leer | |
| From doors of dens where gamblers meet | |
| Or dives or corners of the street— | |
| In tawdry, slattern Chinatown. | 40 |
| |
| Calling out to sailor men: | |
| “Sailor mokki hi, | |
| Fightin’ dlunk in Doyers Stleet, | |
| China gel no li!” | |
| |
