Mary McNeil Fenollosa

  • Morning Fancy

    O Let me die a-singing!
      O let me drown in light!
    Another day is winging
      Out from the nest of night.

    The morning-glory’s velvet eye
      Brims with a jewelled bead.
    To-day my soul’s a dragon-fly,
      The world a swaying reed.

  • Yuki

    When cherry flowers begin to blow
      With Yuki’s face beneath them,
    The richest petals lose their glow,
      And small buds haste to sheath them.

    When blue wistaria hangs its head
      And Yuki leans above it,
    The swallow flits discomforted,—
      ...

  • A Drifting Petal

    If I, athirst by a stream, should kneel
    With never a blossom or bud in sight,
    Till down on the theme of its liquid night
    The moon-white tip of a sudden keel,
        A fairy boat,
    Should dawn and float
    To my hand, as only the Gods deserve,
    The...

  • Miyoko San

    Snare me the soul of a dragon-fly,
    The jewelled heart of a dew-tipped spray,
        A star’s quick eye,
        Or the scarlet cry
    Of a lonely wing on a dawn-lit bay.
      Then add the gleam of a golden fan,
      And I will paint you Miyoko San.

    Find...

  • Flying Fish

    Out where the sky and the sky-blue sea
      Merge in a mist of sheen,
    There started a vision of silver things,
    A leap and a quiver, a flash of wings
      The sky and the sea between.

    Is it of birds from the blue above,
      Or fish from the depths that be...

  • Sunrise in the Hills of Satsuma

    The Day unfolds like a lotus bloom,
      Pink at the tip and gold at the core,
    Rising up swiftly through waters of gloom
            That lave night’s shore.

    Down bamboo-stalks the sunbeams slide,
      Darting like glittering elves at play,
    To the thin...