I lay in Yen’s opium joint ...

I lay in Yen’s opium joint ...
by Robert E. Howard

From a letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, January 30, 1925; titled with the first line in COLLECTED POETRY

1894003I lay in Yen’s opium joint ...Robert E. Howard

I lay in Yen’s opium joint,

A-watchin’ the devils dance

And the mandarin on the painted screen

’E seemed to h’arise and prance.

H’a most ondecent purformance

Ee-yah, and it’s the truth

I’ll forswear all ’eathen contraptions and go back to the booze of my youth.