The Girl from Hong-Kong: A Story of Adventure Under Five Suns — page 118: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

112: TRE GIRL FROM HONG-KONG, Who idle.thére beside the busy.;way And dream among the Toses all the day?” “The old man raised his ead and ‘made reply, - A tender sadness brimming i in his eye: ‘I love the roses, sire—so fair to- -day, To-morrow finds them scattered down the way, Wan, withered wrecks of what they were before: One little day, and then they bloom no more; The wind doth strew their petals on the ground, And waft their-hearts’ warm fragrance. all-around, Across the town, or dowh the noisesome lane, Yet no one heeds—the roses bloom in ain!’ ** ‘Twice idle thou, to waste thy time on these That waste themselves so idly on the breeze!” Replied. the sultan; frowning angrily. © | “The old man bored ‘So-saith thy law to thee; But Allah made the blood-red rose to bloom, And Allah gave the rose its sweet perfume. Dost think it part of Allah’s loving plan That aught he gives should be disdained by_ man? Did Allah make that rose to bloom and die © Unseen, uncared by every passer-by?’ One finger deep within his thoughtful cheek, The sultan looked at him, but did not speak. *« “Since Allah made the eye-of man to see The biocd-red rose has its excuse to be;. And in its heart hath Allah made to dwell Sweet perfume that the sons of man may smell. Yet since the sons of man all pass it by With purblind scorn, be mine the grateful eye .. Be mine the eye to.see, and mine the nose — To smell the perfume Allah gave the rose!’ comiclooks.com