[Editor: This poem by Una Shaw was published in The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, NSW), 11 April 1931.]
The King of China’s Daughter.
The King of China’s daughter
Was fair and over-fair;
Her eyes were bright as water,
And gold was in her hair.
Whene’er she sang in cherry time
The cherries called her fair,
And all the birds in far Cathay
Came flying through the air.
The King of China’s daughter
Is dead long years ago.
Her soul fled like the singing birds
Before the winter snow,
Yet all the birds in far Cathay,
As in the long ago,
Sing round her grave unto this day,
When cherry orchards blow.
UNA SHAW.
Source:
The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, NSW), 11 April 1931, page 9
Previously published in:
The Newcastle Sun (Newcastle, NSW), 17 January 1922, p. 3
Editor’s notes:
This poem was published in The Newcastle Sun, on 17 January 1922, under the title of “In Cherry Time” (from Miss Una Shaw, of Greenwood, Singleton). However, the 1922 printing did not include the 14th line. As this poem has standard stanzas of 8 lines each, it is assumed that the missing line was provided, but was inadvertently dropped from The Newcastle Sun due to an oversight on the newspaper’s part.
It is possible that the subject of “The King of China’s daughter” was derived from the well-known poem “The King of China’s Daughter” (published in two parts, 1918 and 1920) by Edith Sitwell, an English poet.
See: 1) “‘The King of China’s Daughter’ by Edith Sitwell (1918/1920)”, The Shimmering Ostrich
2) “The King of China’s Daughter by Edith Sitwell, my favourite poem”, Parissa Sheerin
whene’er = (vernacular) a contraction of “whenever”
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