Defamation

How finely wrought! how exquisite!

You weave the perfectest brocade!
Ye scandal-weavers! — yet ye go
Too far with your tirade.
What gaping and wide-open mouths!
So many Southern Sieves, indeed!
Ye scandal-mongers! — Say, yet, who

Takes in these plots the lead?
"With clitter-clatter, here and there,

Ye plot, ye seek to vilify,
Yet of the tales ye tell — beware,
For others say ye lie.
Adroit and shifty — so ye plot,
All eager till the scandal spreads.

True, 'tis believed; yet even now
Recoils on your own heads.

The haughty ones are overjoyed;
The men who toil are sore annoyed.

O azure Heaven! O azure Heaven!
Those haughty ones do Thou regard.
And pity those whose toil is hard.

The slanderers! — And yet I'd know
By whose support these plottings grow.
Seize the defa,mers! — banish them

To wolves and tigers forth!
If wolves and tigers spurn such prey,

Send them into the North.
And if the North should spare them still,
Give them to Heaven's own will.
Up to the cultivated hill
Through willow-patches lies a way.
And I, Mang-tse the Eunuch, am
The author of this lay.

All ye of higher grade, take heed
And list to what I say.