THE DESERTED VILLAGE
By:
August 10, 2026
A series dedicated to poems, published c. 1900–1935, the Radium Age sf-adjacent themes of which include: dystopia and utopia, far-out mathematics and the fourth dimension, Afro-futurism, catastrophe, future war, new technologies, scientific breakthrough, dehumanization, cosmic awe, disenchantment and unseen forces, unknowable aliens and singularity. Research and selection by Joshua Glenn; thematic index here.
Where did they go? How has it come to pass?
On stoves squat frogs, in ladles lilies bloom;
Tables and chairs float in fields and water ponds;
Rope-bridges of spiderwebs span room on room.
Coffins are wedged in doorways, rocks block windows:
A sight of strange gloom that rends my heart.
Scythes lie rusting away in dust,
Fishing nets, abandoned, rot in ash-piles.
Heavens, even such a village cannot retain them,
Where roses forever smile, and lily leaves grow as big as umbrellas;
Where rice sprouts are so slender, the lake so green,
The sky so blue, and the birds’ songs so like dew-pearls.
Who made the sprouts green and the flowers red?
Whose sweat and blood is it that is blended in the soil?
Those who have gone left so resolutely, unhesitatingly.
What was their grievance, their secret wish?
Now, somebody must tell them: “Here the hogs
Roam the streets, ducks waddle among the pigs,
Roosters trample on the peony, and cows browse on vegetable patches.”
Tell them: “The sun is down, yet the cattle are still on the hills.
Their black silhouettes pause on the ridge, waiting,
While the mountains around, like dragons and tigers,
Close in on them. They glance about and shiver.
Bowing their heads, too frightened to look again.”
This, too, you must tell them: “These beasts recall days of old
When evening chill approached and poplars trembled in the wind,
They only needed to call once from the hilltop.
Though the trails were steep, their masters would help them,
And accompanying them home there would be the scent of hay.
As they think thus, their tears fall.
And they huddle together, jowl against jowl….”
Go, tell their masters, tell them.
Tell them everything, do not hide anything.
Ask them to return! Ask them to return!
Ask them why they do not care for their own cattle.
Don’t they know that these beasts are like children?
Poor creatures, so pitiful, so frightened.
Hey, where are you, messenger?
Hurry now, tell them — tell Old Wang the Third,
Tell the Eldest Chou and all his eight brothers,
Tell all the farm hands living around the Lin-huai Gate,
Tell also that red-faced blacksmith Old Li,
Tell Old Woman Huang and all the village women,
Tell them all these things, one by one.
Tell them to come back, come back!
My heart is torn by this sight of gloom.
Heavens, such a village cannot retain these people,
Such a paradise on earth without a man!
— 1927. Found in translation in Twentieth Century Chinese poetry: An Anthology (1963), by Kai-yu Hsu (translator and editor).
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF POETRY: Stephen Spender’s THE PYLONS | George Sterling’s THE TESTIMONY OF THE SUNS | Archibald MacLeish’s EINSTEIN | Thomas Thornely’s THE ATOM | C.S. Lewis’s DYMER | Stephen Vincent Benét’s METROPOLITAN NIGHTMARE | Robert Frost’s FIRE AND ICE | Aldous Huxley’s FIFTH PHILOSOPHER’S SONG | Sara Teasdale’s “THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS” | Edith Södergran’s ON FOOT I HAD TO… | Robert Graves’s WELSH INCIDENT | Nancy Cunard’s ZEPPELINS | D.H. Lawrence’s WELLSIAN FUTURES | & many more.