我爱古诗词 > 诗歌大全 > 英文诗歌 >

诗歌赏析:A Purchase of Porcelain

时间: 燕华2 英文诗歌

  A Purchase of Porcelain

  Because the king

  decrees that every Jew

  must buy his wedding-right

  in unsold porcelain

  from the royal chinaworks,

  here he stands, an amorous Jew,

  gazing at luminous

  suns and moons arrayed

  on doths of velvet-blue,

  earth that has married fire twice,

  that has been shaped and named

  for what it comprehends: sherbets, salads,

  gravies, desserts. He lifts a platter fine

  as alabaster in cathedral windows:

  salvation, the passage of light

  through bone. Ah, but

  not for you, the store-man says.

  Closeted, in shipping crates

  are pieces no one else will buy

  baboon fops in feathered caps,

  chimpanzees in petticoats.

  Visitors will later testify,

  his home was comfortable,

  despite the china apes

  peering from every corner.

1621