You thought me sunk in lethargy, too deeply drugged with sleep
To notice how your armored fleets kept creeping o'er the deep,
Too indolent to organize, too feeble to resist,
Too timid to return the blow of Europe's mailÈd fist;
And Asia's conquest seemed to you a matter of such ease
That all your kings knew perfectly the part which each would seize.
Of such a "sluggish, inert mass" why should you be afraid?
You wanted ports and provinces for purposes of trade,
And monster "spheres of influence", whose wealth could be controlled
And plundered by your Governments to fill their vaults with gold;
Hence, since it seemed so probable that none of us would fight,
Why should you even hesitate to prove that Might makes Right?

And yet perhaps it had been well, before you formed your plan,
To study Asia's history from Persia to Japan;
For though the sleeping Orient, like grain before the blast,
May bow its head, it rights itself when once the storm is past.
How often has the Occident invaded our domains
And boasted of its victories! Yet of them what remains?
Seems India exceptional? Fools, judge not by a day!
The horologe of centuries moves slowly in Cathay.
The brilliant son of Macedon saw, crushed and pale with fear,
The vanquished East from Babylon to Egypt and Cashmere;
But though the conquered Orient lay helpless, as his slave,
Of Alexander's influence how much survived his grave?
Of Rome's prodigious armaments, to Asian conquests led,
Where is there now a souvenir save relics of the dead?
And of the vast Crusading hosts, which in their madness rose
And hurled themselves repeatedly upon their Moslem foes,—
What is to-day the net result? A thousand years have passed,
But none of all their vaunted gains proved great enough to last;
The Saviour's tomb, Jerusalem, and all the sacred lands
Connected with the Christian faith are still in Asian hands!

We needed rude awakening to rouse us from our sloth;
It came among our northern isles, whose heroes, nothing loth,
Unbarred their ports to modern fleets, their ancient life forswore,
And learned from greedy foreigners the Christians' art of war.
Behold! the world in fifty years is breathless with surprise,
And Europe's greatest Government has sought us for allies!
That little section of our mass aroused itself, and lo!
Your largest Occidental Power has reeled beneath the blow;
And while our living troops receive men's rapturous acclaim,
Our fallen heroes have attained the Pantheon of fame.
Yet think not we deceive ourselves; you praise, but really dread
The valour of the Orient, if this awakening spread;
Behind this movement of the East you think you hear the low,
Long murmur of the Asians,—"The foreigner must go"!
What wonder that we hate you all? You look on us to-day
As lions look on antelopes,—their heaven-appointed prey;
You know you have no lawful right to lands that you possess;
You gained them all through violence, or lying and finesse;
Your cursed opium alone, despite our prayers and tears,
Has ruined millions of our race for more than two score years,
And when we rose indignantly to right that bitter wrong,
Your heavy guns bombarded us, and you annexed … Hong Kong!
You force yourselves on us, and ask concessions, favors, mines,
Protection for your mission schools, and grants of railway lines,
But when we cross the seas to you, an entry you refuse,
And curse, illtreat, and harry us with loathing and abuse.
Japan has shown the only way of keeping for our own
The fertile fields which rightfully belong to us alone;
We do not wish to arm ourselves, and fighting we abhor,
But self-protection forces us to learn and practise war.

Hence, if assailed, we shall not shun a struggle with the West;
Not bent on conquest, like yourselves, but, rising to the test
Of "Asia for the Asians", defend our threatened farms
By sending to encounter you a million men in arms.
You think yourselves invincible? Learn something from Japan,
The fever of whose chivalry now spreads from man to man,
Encouraging the Orient to hasten on the day
When all enlightened Asians shall cry "Enough! Away!
Go exploit helpless Africa, where you have shamed the beast,
But understand, your cruel day is over in the East!"
You still have many things to learn, base worshippers of gold;
When you were wild barbarians, our Governments were old!
Your self-conceit and arrogance we therefore laugh to scorn;
We had our laws millenniums before your courts were born.
You talk by electricity, you ride on wings of steam,
You thunder with machinery,—and these you proudly deem
The grandest triumphs of the race, forgetting that mere speed
In transference of men and things is less than one great deed.

You treat us condescendingly, as if our gifts were small,
But do you think Almighty God has dowered you with all?
Earth's greatest continent is ours; her highest mountains rise
In unapproached sublimity beneath our starry skies;
Ours, too, the cradle of the race; and at our Buddha's shrine
Unequalled numbers of mankind adore him as divine.
How dare you speak of Asian thought with pity or a sneer,
When practically all you know originated here?
What had you been, if our ideals, in art and faith expressed,
Had not come down through Greece and Rome to civilize your West?
The great religions of the world are all of Asian birth,
And thence went forth resistlessly to dominate the earth.
Of six we granted one to you; and you profess its creeds,
But what a sorry travesty you make of it in deeds!
The Christ taught love to enemies; His followers to-day
Have trained the whole male Christian world their fellow men to slay!
The very Bible that you prize was writ by Asian hands;
Your prophets, saints, and patriarchs were all of Eastern lands;
The Son of God, as you believe, was born a humble Jew;
The Virgin Mother equally no other parents knew;
Yet you have robbed and tortured Jews, and murdered them at will
Through eighteen Christian centuries,—are killing thousands still!

The "Star of Empire," as you claim, has "westward" made its way;
But what if now in Eastern skies it heralds a new day?
You fondly dreamed its brilliant course had ended there with you,
But on it moves, old lands to greet, and belt the globe anew!
Its kindling rays revivify our nations, which have slept
While round the world our influence through you has slowly crept.
The coming century's great deeds lie not at Europe's doors;
A grander stage awaits mankind,—the vast Pacific's shores;
And we not only skirt that sea from Tokyo to Saigon,
Our coastline fronts the western world from Syria to Ceylon!
Again shall we supply to you the part of life you need;
Again your slaves of strenuous toil shall live at slower speed;
Once more, as pilgrims to a shrine, your chiefs shall come to me,
And learn of my philosophy, as children at my knee.
You cannot cut me from your past, nor cancel what you owe
For all my sages gave to you two thousand years ago;
For after twenty centuries you think, and speak, and pray
Still much as I instructed you in Syria and Cathay.
Keep you, then, the material, I hold the mental, realm;
For you the ship's machinery, for me the guiding helm!