[Messer Marco Polo by Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne]@TWC D-Link bookMesser Marco Polo CHAPTER IV 13/14
'And let it bring you luck against the anger of the ocean and the enemies all men have.
And let me know when you are back, because I'll be worried about a man of China and him in danger on the open sea.' "And wasn't that a wonderful thing from a daughter of Kubla to me, a poor sailor-man? "The son of the King of Siam came to woo her with a hundred princes on a hundred elephants, but she wouldn't have him.
'I don't wish to be a queen,' she told her father.
'How could I be a queen? I am only Golden Bells.' Nor would she have anything to say to the Prince of the Land of Darkness, who came to her with sea ivory and pale Arctic gold. 'The sun of China is in my heart, and you wouldn't have me go up into the great coldness to shiver and die ?' "So she remains in her garden by the lake of Cranes with Li Po, the great poet, him they call the Drinker of Wine, to make songs for her; and the SANANG Tung Chih, the great magician, to perform wonders for her when she is wearied; and Bulagan, her nurse, to take her to her heart when she is sad. "And sad she is a lot of the time, they tell me.
She sits in her garden in the dusk, playing her lute, and singing the song of the Willow branches, which is the saddest love-song in the world... "And why she should be singing a sad love-song, is a mystery, for her soft, brown beauty is the flower of the world.
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