The Dreaming Walls: Two Poems

The Moat, Chiengmai

By Mary Lou O’Brien

These crumbling walls did once behold Grim warriors waging battle bold. Antiquity breathes from them now; The history of ancient Laos. And lotus blossoms idly float Upon the waters of the moat; So still and sweet the way of peace When war and all its discords cease. O walls and moat which one time barred The way of warriors battle scarred, Rejoice to be a quiet spot And for past glory sorrow not! For we who gaze would rather see Pink lotus buds nod lazily

And climbing vines embrace the walls Than gallant men become war’s thralls.

Siam Outlook, April 1930, p. 453

On Tip Top

Bertha Blount McFarland came to Siam in 1908 and married George Bradley McFarland (1866-1942), a distinguished physician in Bangkok. Her memoir Our Garden was So Fair: The Story of a Mission in Thailand contains an account of their visit to Chiang Mai.

Doi Sutep is the 3,500-foot mountain at the foot of which lies the old northern capital, Chiengmai. We were carried up in chairs, being tenderfoots from the lowlands. Tough Chiengmai-landers boast of the short time it takes them to make the climb. About halfway to the top is the peak that bears the name Doi Sutep. A little temple nestles on the hillside. Nearby is the summer palace of Chao Dara, the Laos princess who became the wife of King Chulalongkorn. Her rose garden was one of the wonders of the Thailand world. At the temple and rose garden we stopped for a little breathing spell to give our carriers a rest, and to enjoy the roses. Then on we pressed, until the air grew rarer and we felt the change in atmosphere. On Tip Top we were in the temperate zone; the torrid zone lay down in Chiengmai. On the mountain top the sun loses its fiery character and one can go about bareheaded without fear. Even flora and fauna are different; pines grow easily. There we were on the top of the world and could look down in all directions and far off to the farther and higher mountain peaks.

McFarland: Our Garden was So Fair, pp. 89-90