In Reply to an Invitation by Thomas Burke — Read

Don't think of me as one of no courtesy / O elegant and refined foreign one, / If I do not accept your high-minded invitation / To drink rice-spirit with you / At the little place called The Blue Lantern, near Pennyfields. / Please don't regard me as lacking in gracious behaviour, / Or as insufferably ignorant of the teachings of the Book of Rites

But I am sojourning here in a strange land, / And am not fully informed of the usages of your dignified people.

As the wise Mencius observed in one of his inspired hours, / Doubtless thinking forward to situation of this person: / Child who has once suffered unpleasant sensation of burning, / Ever afterward reluctant to approach stove. / Wherefore, as this person once accepted an invitation, / In words as affable and polished as yours, Mister, / To drink rice-spirit at The Blue Lantern, / And was there subjected to a custom of this country / Of an entirely disturbing and unpleasing nature, / Known as Ceremony of Confidence, / He has, since that day, viewed The Blue Lantern / With a feeling of most decided repugnance.