It was such a lonely place;

And he said we should be pinned

Safely in his beetle-case.

Out he dragged a monstrous box

From a cave behind the tree!

It had four-and-twenty locks,

But he could not find the key,

And his face grew very pale

When a sudden voice began

Drawing nearer through the vale,

Singing songs of Old Japan,

SONG

Satin sails in a crimson dawn

Over the silky silver sea;

Purple veils of the dark withdrawn;

Heavens of pearl and porphyry;

Purple and white in the morning light

Over the water the town we knew,

In tiny state, like a willow-plate,

Shone, and behind it the hills were blue.

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