At night--ah, at night the long streets are a sight,
With garlands of soft-colored lanterns alight--
Blue, yellow, and red twinkling high overhead,
Like thousands of butterflies taking their flight.
Somewhere in the gloom that no lanterns illume
Stand groups of slim lilies and jonquils in bloom;
On tiptoe, unseen 'mid a tangle of green,
They offer the midnight their cups of perfume.
At times, sweet and clear from some tea-garden near,
A ripple of laughter steals out to your ear;
Anon the wind brings from a samisen's strings
The pathos that's born of a smile and a tear.
THE difference between an English audience and a French audience at the
theatre is marked. The Frenchman brings down a witticism on the wing.
The Briton pauses for it to alight and give him reasonable time for
deliberate aim. In English playhouses an appreciable number of seconds
usually precede the smile or the ripple of laughter that follows a
facetious turn of the least fineness.
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