by Joan S. Grigsby
From: Lanterns by the
Lake (London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trubner & Co., Ltd. 1929)
Joan Savell Grigsby and
her husband Arthur Grigsby came to live in Japan in 1924. Most of the poems in Lanterns
by the Lake were written in Japan, about Japanese subjects, but at the last
moment, late in 1928, perhaps hearing of the poet’s plans to move to Korea, the
publishers seem to have asked her to include some poems on Korean topics. The
Grigsbys arrived in Korea in January 1929.
It may be that the boat
from Japan brought them to what is now Inch’ŏn, then known as Chemulpo, which
would explain the location of the first poem, though not its repeated use of
the word “beloved.” Joan Grigsby does not write in her own person so much as in
a variety of more or less dramatized voices. It would also be possible to hear
in this poem someone straining to love what does not look like a very loveable
seascape. The reference to “the swift brown currents swirling” is realistic,
the tides produce very powerful currents in the area.
You will remember these
beloved islands,
The wild acacia thicket,
silver green
After the rain ; the
stone pines on the high lands ;
The swift brown currents
swirling round between
The white sand beaches of
the little islands.
You will remember—there
is no forgetting—
Those orange sails
against the dying day,
When, on the ebb tide,
homeward junks are setting
Across the Yellow Sea to
Wei Hai Wei,
With little winds between
their wet ropes fretting.
And you will dream of the
queer freights they carry—
Globe fish and seaweed,
pigs, perhaps a maid—
Some lovely, slant-eyed
child who sails to marry
Her destined lover,
lonely and afraid,
Part of the cargo any
junk will carry.
Swift is the dusk. Stars
wake above the water.
Deep in the shadow of
acacia trees
Pale lanterns move. The
sound of women’s laughter
Breaks through the
whispered singing of the seas
Then dies. No sound is
left but wind and water.
So shall you dream of
these beloved islands—
Dusk and the stars above
the Yellow Sea,
Wind in the wild acacias
on the high lands.
Departing ship lights.
Such a memory
Shall haunt your heart of
these beloved islands.
Arriving in Seoul in the
depth of winter, in January 1929, they soon moved into the upper floor of an
extraordinary mansion named Dilkusha, situated in a large garden on a hillside
above Seoul. The vast garden round the house could only be reached by climbing
a steep, narrow, crowded, badly paved alley running between small houses. The
sounds reported in this poem, and the emotions they evoke, suggest something of
the poet’s disarray on finding herself transported from the refined, subdued
orderliness of Japan to the uproar of Seoul and its markets. The result is
powerful.
High o’er the twisted
streets and huddled alleys
The white stars tremble and, with night, reveal
The hidden beauty of this
Eastern city—
Dream things that daylight or the gods conceal—
Jealous, perhaps, to
guard some old enchantment
That only starlight and the night reveal.
Out of the narrow lane
below my garden
The sounds of night arise, confused and wild,
Swift throb of
drums, a mourner wailing, wailing ;
Men quarelling ; the sobbing of a child ;
Or women beating
clothes with wooden paddles
Or footsteps wandering, restless, weary, wild.
The white-robed forms
move slowly, crowd together
About a chestnut stall. The brazier’s glow
Lights up black eyes and
hungry, narrow faces
Below the high-crowned hats. They come and go
Wandering, chattering in
darkened alleys
Like ghosts of men forgotten long ago.
Clatter and cry—hoarse
voice of vendors calling
Their wares. The markets open for the night,
Gay china, yellow
oranges, green cabbage
Spread below smoky lamps’ uncertain light,
Amid the ceaseless hum of
surging chatter
That swells and falls upon the Eastern night.
Then—silence, for the
market hours are ended,
Till the stray dogs begin, half starved and wild,
To fight for garbage.
From some hidden hovel
Rises the wailing of a sickly child
And all night long across
the Eastern city
Go footsteps wandering, restless, weary, wild.
The garden surrounding
Dilkusha included in its walls a huge, ancient gingko that is still there, many
other trees, a flowing spring, and a carved stone remaining from the time when
there had been a temple there in Koryŏ times,
The way to the well—how
beautiful it is
At twilight when the
first pale stars appear
Above the garden and the
quince tree seems
Heavy with hidden
centuries of dreams ;
Haunted by footsteps that
of old drew near
The well, before men made
a garden here.
The quince tree by the
well—so old, so old,
The black stem seems a
thing of stone, cold, dead.
Yet the leaves murmur of
forgotten hours
When women who were
beautiful as flowers
Trod this same path, with
bucket poised on head,
Down to the well where
fallen quinces spread
Pale balls among the
long, dew-scented grass,
And poppy petals
scattered points of flame
Upon the path, the green
moss overgrown ;
Or on the broken steps of
rough, grey stone.
Did they too hear the
quince tree, when they came,
Whisper to them some
secret, haunting name?
The way to the well—how
beautiful it is—
Haunted by wandering feet
that cannot stay,
The red brick path by green
moss overgrown,
The scarlet petals
falling on grey stone,
The old, old quince tree,
singing night and day,
Of women like white
flowers who went away.
The references to autumn
might be taken as the work of the poet’s imagination, since almost certainly
these poems had to be written in the late winter and early spring of 1929, to
be sent to the printers in Japan for inclusion in he volume as soon as
possible.
The quinces are yellow
lamps amid red leaves,
Gay festal lanterns that
a faery hand
Hung there at twilight
when the long leaves turned
From emerald to a mass of
crimson flame,
Enchanted fire that
through the dawn mist burned.
Beautiful is morning on
the land
When quinces hang like
lamps among red leaves.
And when the moon of
autumn lights the hills
Silver green are the
quinces in her light,
Like lamps among the
leaves above the well
That mirrors them
entangled with the stars.
See, there a red leaf on
the water fell.
One by one they will fall
through the autumn night.
Tomorrow at dawn the well
will brim with leaves.
The quinces are yellow
lamps amid red leaves.
Tomorrow, when they
ripen, we will go
Gathering them. In
baskets they will lie,
Pale yellow fruit, a
little pitiful
And sad their bare tree
set against the shy.
But we have seen and we
will always know
Their light of festal
lamps at autumn tide.
Soon after they arrived
in Seoul, Faith Grigsby recalls going to watch the arrival down the road from
the north of a great caravan from Mongolia. That event is not mentioned here,
the road is sordid rather than exotic, but two things stand out. First, the
unromantic evocation of the modern traffic, and the symbolic image of the
shabby palaquin carrying one who had been “a courtier to a king,” in which it
is hard not to see a reference to the humiliation of Korea, deprived of its
king and of its independence. Second, we note the poet’s awareness that this
road (leading north from Seoul’s “Independence Gate”) is continental,
international, that Korea is part of the enormous Eurasian landmass, and that
the fabled city of Peking is not so far away.
Between the hills it
winds away—the high road to Peking.
The bullock carts go down
it in a long, unbroken string ;
The ‘rickshas and the
buses, a shabby palanquin,
An old man like a drowsy
god nods wearily within,
Dreaming of days when men
were proud to own a palanquin.
Now motor cars sweep by
him and cover him with dust;
His gold-embroidered
curtains are soiled with moth and rust
And no one asks his
bearers who the rich man is they bring
Through crowds that
throng at twilight the highway to Peking ;
For no one cares that
once he was a courtier to a king.
Now the muleteers come
slowly, riding on their heavy packs,
Small mules, half hidden
by the loads, sweat streaming down their backs.
Ah ! the shouting and the
straining and the pulling as they go,
Beaten when they move too
quickly, beaten when they are too slow,
Like mules on the Peking
highway three hundred years ago.
Beyond the city gateway,
beyond the broken wall,
Where, from the shattered
rampart, great blocks of stonework fall,
Into the purple mountains
the long road winds away.
Do shadows from those
ramparts lean to watch at close of day,
The lights that move and
vanish along the great highway,
As once they watched and
challenged the scout of Genghis Khan
Who rode through these
same mountains down to the River Hahn,
Telling of greater
countries and of a greater king,
Beyond the purple
mountains and the roadway to Peking ?
Maybe that rampart echoed
the song he came to sing.
Ah ! long, grey road you
wind away below the saffron sky,
Luring beyond the city
gate the dreams of such as I
To gateways at your other
end where still the merchants bring
Their painted fans, their
carven jade and many a silver ring
To market down the road
of dreams—the high road to Peking.
Poems such as this and
the one following it suggest that the poet found it difficult to find many
subjects to write poetry about in her new land.
Love made a lotus flower
with seed of stars
And set it in a garden
far away.
I, passing by upon a
summer’s noon,
Gathered the flower and
carried it away.
Cool in my hand the
silken petals lay
And all night long, below
the watchful moon,
I dreamed of love but,
long before the dawn,
The petals faded with the
setting moon.
This is her fan. It holds
her perfume still ;
The frail, flower scent
that lingered in this room
For such a little while.
Amd still, for me, it
holds the strange, dim smile
That hovered on her lips
and in her eyes ;
She who, in ways of love,
was sadly wise—
She the adored, the
unforgettable !
It would be possible to
link this poem to the previous two, but the image of jade pins tossed into the
dust might also be seen as an image of humiliated Korea.
Hairpins of jade and
combs of gold !
Like stars they shine
about thy face
Amid the lustre of thy
hair,
And red pomegranate
flowers are there
To hold the braids in
proper place.
Hairpins of jade in
silken coil
And combs of gold are
very fair.
Yet I would toss them all
away
To watch the wind and
starlight play
A moment with thy
loosened hair !
Ah ! pins of jade—where
are they now ?
Tossed in the dust with
none to care.
The silken braids are
held in place
Upon my heart and there
thy face
Shines like a star from
clouds of hair.
The gingko tree evoked
here is surely the huge old tree in the garden of Dilkusha, identified by the
reference to the spring, and above all to the “carven altar,” a stone remaining
from the temple that had once stood on the site. The reference to “brown, burnt
grass” suggests that the poet had not experienced Korean summer, with its lush
and well-watered vegetation
“There are trees that love and dream, with
the souls of
men or, it may be, of gods.”
Dawn, and the garden
wakes. The gingko tree
Stirs in a dream while
mists of morning shed
Their pallid veil above
the cloud of leaves.
Noontide and throbbing
heat. The branches spread
On brown, burnt grass
their cool, green canopy.
Deep in the Healing Well
their shadows lie.
Sometimes the blue flash
of a magpie’s wing
Shines in the water or a
green leaf drops
Onto the flat, grey rock
above the spring.
Still dreams the tree in
mists of memory.
Once to this carven altar
women came,
Murmuring to the tree
desires unknown,
Their green cloaks in the
starlight glimmering.
And once, at moonrise,
through the garden shone
The crimson light of
sacrificial flame
That burned for dead men
by the gingko tree,
While solemn chant of
white-robed mourners fell,
Like wind among the branches,
on the night,
Broken by beating drum or
tremulous bell.
Still dreams the tree in
mists of memory.
And these green boughs,
like arms, below the sky
Outspreading, seek to
fold the whole earth in,
One with the vision that
their shadow veils ;
To gather up the lonely
souls of men
Into a deeper soul’s
serenity.
For there are trees and
this, ah ! this is one,
More passionate than men.
They love, they know
The hunger in a heart
that asks of life
Always too great a thing
; that seeks to go
Always too far and so
must go alone.
They love, they know and
peace for ever falls
From these great boughs
that still perceive afar,
Beyond the changing sky,
the swerving wind,
Beyond the sunset and the
morning star
A golden city girt with
ivory walls.
There is something
poignant about this glimpse of an entirely Japanese scene in a city that is so
clearly not Japanese in the Grigsby sense of a magic, “faery” land of ancient
beauty. The poet transfers to the elderly woman she sees her own strong
awareness that Koreans are “an alien race” with characteristics evoked in the
second poem, “Korean Night,” quite unlike the sophistication of the Japanese
and the elegant calm of Japanese townscapes.
(A
Japanese Garden in Korea)
The violet veils of
twilight fall.
I resting on your hill,
Look down into your
garden
And hear the streams that fill
Your fountain pool, your
lotus tank,
Your lake so crystal still.
Their silver voices sing
to me
Who rest upon the hill.
I see your servant slowly
wash
The path of smooth-cut stone
And sweep the scattered
cherry leaves
That summer winds have strown.
How cool the water is
that falls
Over the smooth-cut stone,
Down in you garden
beautiful
At dusk for you alone.
I see you blue hibachi
set
Beside the open screen,
The polished, dark
verandah floor,
The yellow mats within,
Your teacup on the table,
Your plate of sugared bean,
You on the silken cushion
set
Beside the open screen.
What do you dream of, all
alone,
Here in this alien place ?
Another garden, far away
?
Some unforgotten face ?
You are so old to dwell
alone,
So full of gentle grace,
You and your garden
beautiful
Amid an alien race.