PART II Po Chu-i ( A.D. 772-846) |
[104]
[105] INTRODUCTION Po ChÜ-i was born at T’ai-yÜan in Shansi. Most of his childhood was spent at Jung-yang in Honan. His father was a second-class Assistant Department Magistrate. He tells us that his family was poor and often in difficulties. He seems to have settled permanently at Ch’ang-an in 801. This town, lying near the north-west frontier, was the political capital of the Empire. In its situation it somewhat resembled Madrid. Lo-yang, the Eastern city, owing to its milder climate and more accessible position, became, like Seville in Spain, a kind of social capital. Soon afterwards he met YÜan Chen, then aged twenty-two, who was destined to play so important a part in his life. Five years later, during a temporary absence from the city, he addressed to YÜan the following poem: Since I left my home to seek official state
Seven years I have lived in Ch’ang-an.
What have I gained? Only you, YÜan;
So hard it is to bind friendships fast.
We have roamed on horseback under the flowering trees;
We have walked in the snow and warmed our hearts with wine.
We have met and parted at the Western Gate
And neither of us bothered to put on Cap or Belt.
We did not go up together for Examination;
We were not serving in the same Department of State.
The bond that joined us lay deeper than outward things;
The rivers of our souls spring from the same well!
Of YÜan’s appearance at this time we may guess something from a picture which still survives in copy; it shows him, a youthful and elegant figure, visiting his cousin Ts’ui Ying-ying, who was a lady-in-waiting at Court.[45] At this period of his life Po made friends with difficulty, not being, as he tells us, “a master of such accomplishments as caligraphy, painting, chess or gambling, which tend to bring men together in pleasurable intercourse.” Two older men, T’ang Ch’Ü and Teng Fang, liked his poetry and showed him much kindness; another, the politician K’ung T’an, won his admiration on public grounds. But all three died soon after he got to know them. Later he made three friends with whom he maintained a lifelong intimacy: the poet Liu Yu-hsi (called Meng-te), and the two officials Li Chien and Ts’ui Hsuan-liang. In 805 YÜan Chen was banished for provocative behaviour towards a high official. The T’ang History relates the episode as follows: “YÜan was staying the night at the Fu-shui Inn; just as he was preparing to go to sleep in the Main Hall, the court-official Li Shih-yÜan also arrived. YÜan Chen should have offered to withdraw from the Hall. He did not do so and a scuffle ensued. YÜan, locked out of the building, took off his shoes and stole round to the back, hoping to find another way in. Liu followed with a whip and struck him across the face.” The separation was a heavy blow to Po ChÜ-i. In a poem called “Climbing Alone to the Lo-yu Gardens” he says: I look down on the Twelve City Streets:—
Red dust flanked by green trees!
Coaches and horsemen alone fill my eyes;
I do not see whom my heart longs to see.
K’ung T’an has died at Lo-yang;
YÜan Chen is banished to Ching-men.
Of all that walk on the North-South Road
There is not one that I care for more than the rest!
In 804 on the death of his father, and again in 811 on the death of his mother, he spent periods of retirement on the Wei river near Ch’ang-an. It was during the second of these periods that he wrote the long poem (260 lines) called “Visiting the Wu-chen Temple.” Soon after his return to Ch’ang-an, which took place in the winter of 814, he fell into official disfavour. In two long memorials entitled “On Stopping the War,” he had criticized the handling of a campaign against an unimportant tribe of Tartars, which he considered had been unduly prolonged. In a series of poems he had satirized the rapacity of minor officials and called attention to the intolerable sufferings of the masses. His enemies soon found an opportunity of silencing him. In 814 the Prime Minister, Wu YÜan-heng, was assassinated in broad daylight by an agent of the revolutionary leader Wu YÜan-chi. Po, in a memorial to the Throne, pointed out the urgency of remedying the prevailing discontent. He held at this time the post of assistant secretary to the Princes’ tutor. He should not have criticized the Prime Minister (for being murdered!) until the official Censors had spoken, for he held a Palace appointment which did not carry with it the right of censorship. His opponents also raked up another charge. His mother had met her death by falling into a well while looking at flowers. ChÜ-i had written two poems entitled “In Praise of Flowers” and “The New Well.” It was claimed that by choosing such subjects he had infringed the laws of Filial Piety. He was banished to Kiukiang (then called HsÜn-yang) with the rank of Sub-Prefect. After three years he was given the Governorship of Chung-chou, a remote place in Ssech’uan. On the way up the Yangtze he met YÜan Chen after three years of separation. They spent a few days together at I-ch’ang, exploring the rock-caves of the neighbourhood. Chung-chou is noted for its “many flowers and exotic trees,” which were a constant delight to its new Governor. In the winter of 819 he was recalled to the capital and became a second-class Assistant Secretary. About this time YÜan Chen also returned to the city. In 821 the Emperor Mou Tsung came to the throne. His arbitrary mis-government soon caused a fresh rising in the north-west. ChÜ-i remonstrated in a series of memorials and was again removed from the capital—this time to be Governor of the important town of Hangchow. YÜan now held a judicial post at Ningpo and the two were occasionally able to meet. In 824 his Governorship expired and he lived (with the nominal rank of Imperial Tutor) at the village of Li-tao-li, near Lo-yang. It was here that he took into his household two girls, Fan-su and Man-tzu, whose singing and dancing enlivened his retreat. He also brought with him from Hangchow a famous “Indian rock,” and two cranes of the celebrated “Hua-t’ing” breed. Other amenities of his life at this time were a recipe for making sweet wine, the gift of Ch’en Hao-hsien; a harp-melody taught him by Ts’ui Hsuan-liang; and a song called “Autumn Thoughts,” brought by the concubine of a visitor from Ssech’uan. In 825 he became Governor of Soochow. Here at the age of fifty-three he enjoyed a kind of second youth, much more sociable than that of thirty years before; we find him endlessly picnicking and feasting. But after two years illness obliged him to retire. He next held various posts at the capital, but again fell ill, and in 829 settled at Lo-yang as Governor of the Province of Honan. Here his first son, A-ts’ui, was born, but died in the following year. In 831 YÜan Chen also died. Henceforth, though for thirteen years he continued to hold nominal posts, he lived a life of retirement. In 832 he repaired an unoccupied part of the Hsiang-shan monastery at Lung-men,[46] a few miles south of Lo-yang, and lived there, calling himself the Hermit of Hsiang-shan. Once he invited to dinner eight other elderly and retired officials; the occasion was recorded in a picture entitled “The Nine Old Men at Hsiang-shan.” There is no evidence that his association with them was otherwise than transient, though legend (see “MÉmoires Concernant les Chinois” and Giles, Biographical Dictionary) has invested the incident with an undue importance. He amused himself at this time by writing a description of his daily life which would be more interesting if it were not so closely modelled on a famous memoir by T’ao Ch’ien. In the winter of 839 he was attacked by paralysis and lost the use of his left leg. After many months in bed he was again able to visit his garden, carried by Ju-man, a favourite monk. In 842 Liu YÜ-hsi, the last survivor of the four friends, and a constant visitor at the monastery, “went to wander with YÜan Chen in Hades.” The monk Ju-man also died. The remaining years of Po’s life were spent in collecting and arranging his Complete Works. Copies were presented to the principal monasteries (the “Public Libraries” of the period) in the towns with which he had been connected. He died in 846, leaving instructions that his funeral should be without pomp and that he should be buried not in the family tomb at Hsia-kuei, but by Ju-man’s side in the Hsiang-shan Monastery. He desired that a posthumous title should not be awarded. The most striking characteristic of Po ChÜ-i’s poetry is its verbal simplicity. There is a story that he was in the habit of reading his poems to an old peasant woman and altering any expression which she could not understand. The poems of his contemporaries were mere elegant diversions which enabled the scholar to display his erudition, or the literary juggler his dexterity. Po expounded his theory of poetry in a letter to YÜan Chen. Like Confucius, he regarded art solely as a method of conveying instruction. He is not the only great artist who has advanced this untenable theory. He accordingly valued his didactic poems far above his other work; but it is obvious that much of his best poetry conveys no moral whatever. He admits, indeed, that among his “miscellaneous stanzas” many were inspired by some momentary sensation or passing event. “A single laugh or a single sigh were rapidly translated into verse.” The didactic poems or “satires” belong to the period before his first banishment. “When the tyrants and favourites heard my Songs of Ch’in, they looked at one another and changed countenance,” he boasts. Satire, in the European sense, implies wit; but Po’s satires are as lacking in true wit as they are unquestionably full of true poetry. We must regard them simply as moral tales in verse. In the conventional lyric poetry of his predecessors he finds little to admire. Among the earlier poems of the T’ang dynasty he selects for praise the series by Ch’en Tzu-ang, which includes “Business Men.” In Li Po and Tu Fu he finds a deficiency of “feng” and “ya.” The two terms are borrowed from the Preface to the Odes. “Feng” means “criticism of one’s rulers”; “ya,” “moral guidance to the masses.” “The skill,” he says in the same letter, “which Tu Fu shows in threading on to his lÜ-shih a ramification of allusions ancient and modern could not be surpassed; in this he is even superior to Li Po. But, if we take the ‘Press-gang’ and verses like that stanza: what a small part of his whole work it represents!” Content, in short, he valued far above form: and it was part of his theory, though certainly not of his practice, that this content ought to be definitely moral. He aimed at raising poetry from the triviality into which it had sunk and restoring it to its proper intellectual level. It is an irony that he should be chiefly known to posterity, in China, Japan, and the West, as the author of the “Everlasting Wrong.”[47] He set little store by the poem himself, and, though a certain political moral might be read into it, its appeal is clearly romantic. His other poem of sentiment, the “Lute Girl,”[48] accords even less with his stated principles. With these he ranks his LÜ-shih; and it should here be noted that all the satires and long poems are in the old style of versification, while his lighter poems are in the strict, modern form. With his satires he classes his “reflective” poems, such as “Singing in the Mountains,” “On being removed from HsÜn-yang,” “Pruning Trees,” etc. These are all in the old style. No poet in the world can ever have enjoyed greater contemporary popularity than Po. His poems were “on the mouths of kings, princes, concubines, ladies, plough-boys, and grooms.” They were inscribed “on the walls of village-schools, temples, and ships-cabins.” “A certain Captain Kao Hsia-yÜ was courting a dancing-girl. ‘You must not think I am an ordinary dancing-girl,’ she said to him, ‘I can recite Master Po’s “Everlasting Wrong.”’ And she put up her price.” But this popularity was confined to the long, romantic poems and the LÜ-shih. “The world,” writes Po to YÜan Chen, “values highest just those of my poems which I most despise. Of contemporaries you alone have understood my satires and reflective poems. A hundred, a thousand years hence perhaps some one will come who will understand them as you have done.” The popularity of his lighter poems lasted till the Ming dynasty, when a wave of pedantry swept over China. At that period his poetry was considered vulgar, because it was not erudite; and prosaic, because it was not rhetorical. Although they valued form far above content, not even the Ming critics can accuse him of slovenly writing. His versification is admitted by them to be “correct.” Caring, indeed, more for matter than for manner, he used with facility and precision the technical instruments which were at his disposal. Many of the later anthologies omit his name altogether, but he has always had isolated admirers. YÜan Mei imitates him constantly, and Chao I (died 1814) writes: “Those who accuse him of being vulgar and prosaic know nothing of poetry.” Even during his lifetime his reputation had reached Japan, and great writers like Michizane were not ashamed to borrow from him. He is still held in high repute there, is the subject of a No Play and has even become a kind of Shinto deity. It is significant that the only copy of his works in the British Museum is a seventeenth-century Japanese edition. It is usual to close a biographical notice with an attempt to describe the “character” of one’s subject. But I hold myself absolved from such a task; for the sixty poems which follow will enable the reader to perform it for himself. [114]
[115] AN EARLY LEVÉE
Addressed to Ch’en, the Hermit At Ch’ang-an—a full foot of snow;
A levÉe at dawn—to bestow congratulations on the Emperor.
Just as I was nearing the Gate of the Silver Terrace,
After I had left the suburb of Hsin-ch’ang
On the high causeway my horse’s foot slipped;
In the middle of the journey my lantern suddenly went out.
Ten leagues riding, always facing to the North;
The cold wind almost blew off my ears.
I waited for the bell outside the Five Gates;
I waited for the summons within the Triple Hall.
My hair and beard were frozen and covered with icicles;
My coat and robe—chilly like water.
Suddenly I thought of Hsien-yu Valley
And secretly envied Ch’en ChÜ-shih,
In warm bed-socks dozing beneath the rugs
And not getting up till the sun has mounted the sky.
BEING ON DUTY ALL NIGHT IN THE PALACE AND DREAMING OF THE HSIEN-YU TEMPLE At the western window I paused from writing rescripts;
The pines and bamboos were all buried in stillness.
The moon rose and a calm wind came;
Suddenly, it was like an evening in the hills.
And so, as I dozed, I dreamed of the South West
And thought I was staying at the Hsien-yu Temple.[49]
When I woke and heard the dripping of the Palace clock
I still thought it the murmur of a mountain stream.
PASSING T’IEN-MEN STREET IN CH’ANG-AN AND SEEING A DISTANT VIEW OF CHUNG-NAN[50] MOUNTAIN The snow has gone from Chung-nan; spring is almost come.
Lovely in the distance its blue colours, against the brown of the streets.
A thousand coaches, ten thousand horsemen pass down the Nine Roads;
Turns his head and looks at the mountains,—not one man!
THE LETTER Preface:—After I parted with YÜan Chen, I suddenly dreamt one night that I saw him. When I awoke, I found that a letter from him had just arrived and, enclosed in it, a poem on the paulovnia flower. We talked together in the Yung-shou Temple;
We parted to the north of the Hsin-ch’ang dyke.
Going home—I shed a few tears,
Grieving about things,—not sorry for you.
Long, long the road to Lan-t’ien;
You said yourself you would not be able to write.
Reckoning up your halts for eating and sleeping—
By this time you’ve crossed the Shang mountains.
Last night the clouds scattered away;
A thousand leagues, the same moonlight scene.
When dawn came, I dreamt I saw your face;
It must have been that you were thinking of me.
In my dream, I thought I held your hand
And asked you to tell me what your thoughts were.
And you said: “I miss you bitterly,
But there’s no one here to send to you with a letter.”
When I awoke, before I had time to speak,
A knocking on the door sounded “Doong, doong!”
They came and told me a messenger from Shang-chou
Had brought a letter,—a single scroll from you!
Up from my pillow I suddenly sprang out of bed,
And threw you my clothes, all topsy-turvy.
I undid the knot and saw the letter within;
A single sheet with thirteen lines of writing.
At the top it told the sorrows of an exile’s heart;
At the bottom it described the pains of separation.
The sorrows and pains took up so much space
There was no room left to talk about the weather!
But you said that when you wrote
You were staying for the night to the east of Shang-chou;
Sitting alone, lighted by a solitary candle
Lodging in the mountain hostel of Yang-Ch’eng.
Night was late when you finished writing,
The mountain moon was slanting towards the west.
What is it lies aslant across the moon?
A single tree of purple paulovnia flowers—
Paulovnia flowers just on the point of falling
Are a symbol to express “thinking of an absent friend.”
Lovingly—you wrote on the back side,
To send in the letter, your “Poem of the Paulovnia Flower.”
The Poem of the Paulovnia Flower has eight rhymes;
Yet these eight couplets have cast a spell on my heart.
They have taken hold of this morning’s thoughts
And carried them to yours, the night you wrote your letter.
The whole poem I read three times;
Each verse ten times I recite.
So precious to me are the fourscore words
That each letter changes into a bar of gold!
REJOICING AT THE ARRIVAL OF CH’EN HSIUNG When the yellow bird’s note was almost stopped;
And half formed the green plum’s fruit;
Sitting and grieving that spring things were over,
I rose and entered the Eastern Garden’s gate.
I carried my cup and was dully drinking alone:
Suddenly I heard a knocking sound at the door.
Dwelling secluded, I was glad that someone had come;
How much the more, when I saw it was Ch’en Hsiung!
At ease and leisure,—all day we talked;
Crowding and jostling,—the feelings of many years.
How great a thing is a single cup of wine!
For it makes us tell the story of our whole lives.
GOLDEN BELLS When I was almost forty
I had a daughter whose name was Golden Bells.
Now it is just a year since she was born;
She is learning to sit and cannot yet talk.
Ashamed,—to find that I have not a sage’s heart:
I cannot resist vulgar thoughts and feelings.
Henceforward I am tied to things outside myself:
My only reward,—the pleasure I am getting now.
If I am spared the grief of her dying young,
Then I shall have the trouble of getting her married.
My plan for retiring and going back to the hills
Must now be postponed for fifteen years!
REMEMBERING GOLDEN BELLS Ruined and ill,—a man of two score;
Pretty and guileless,—a girl of three.
Not a boy,—but, still better than nothing:
To soothe one’s feeling,—from time to time a kiss!
There came a day,—they suddenly took her from me;
Her soul’s shadow wandered I know not where.
And when I remember how just at the time she died
She lisped strange sounds, beginning to learn to talk,
Then I know that the ties of flesh and blood
Only bind us to a load of grief and sorrow.
At last, by thinking of the time before she was born,
By thought and reason I drove the pain away.
Since my heart forgot her, many days have passed
And three times winter has changed to spring.
This morning, for a little, the old grief came back,
Because, in the road, I met her foster-nurse.
ILLNESS Sad, sad—lean with long illness;
Monotonous, monotonous—days and nights pass.
The summer trees have clad themselves in shade;
The autumn “lan”[51] already houses the dew.
The eggs that lay in the nest when I took to bed
Have changed into little birds and flown away.
The worm that then lay hidden in its hole
Has hatched into a cricket sitting on the tree.
The Four Seasons go on for ever and ever:
In all Nature nothing stops to rest
Even for a moment. Only the sick man’s heart
Deep down still aches as of old!
THE DRAGON OF THE BLACK POOL
A Satire Deep the waters of the Black Pool, coloured like ink;
They say a Holy Dragon lives there, whom men have never seen.
Beside the Pool they have built a shrine; the authorities have established a ritual;
A dragon by itself remains a dragon, but men can make it a god.
Prosperity and disaster, rain and drought, plagues and pestilences—
By the village people were all regarded as the Sacred Dragon’s doing.
They all made offerings of sucking-pig and poured libations of wine;
The morning prayers and evening gifts depended on a “medium’s” advice
When the dragon comes, ah!
The wind stirs and sighs
Paper money thrown, ah!
Silk umbrellas waved.
When the dragon goes, ah!
The wind also—still.
Incense-fire dies, ah!
The cups and vessels are cold.[52]
Meats lie stacked on the rocks of the Pool’s shore;
Wine flows on the grass in front of the shrine.
I do not know, of all those offerings, how much the Dragon eats;
But the mice of the woods and the foxes of the hills are continually drunk and sated.
Why are the foxes so lucky?
What have the sucking-pigs done,
That year by year they should be killed, merely to glut the foxes?
That the foxes are robbing the Sacred Dragon and eating His sucking-pig,
Beneath the nine-fold depths of His pool, does He know or not?
THE GRAIN TRIBUTE There came an officer knocking by night at my door—
In a loud voice demanding grain-tribute.
My house-servants dared not wait till the morning,
But brought candles and set them on the barn-floor.
Passed through the sieve, clean-washed as pearls,
A whole cart-load, thirty bushels of grain.
But still they cry that it is not paid in full:
With whips and curses they goad my servants and boys.
Once, in error, I entered public life;
I am inwardly ashamed that my talents were not sufficient.
In succession I occupied four official posts;
For doing nothing,—ten years’ salary!
Often have I heard that saying of ancient men
That “good and ill follow in an endless chain.”
And to-day it ought to set my heart at rest
To return to others the corn in my great barn.
THE PEOPLE OF TAO-CHOU In the land of Tao-chou
Many of the people are dwarfs;
The tallest of them never grow to more than three feet.
They were sold in the market as dwarf slaves and yearly sent to Court;
Described as “an offering of natural products from the land of Tao-chou.”
A strange “offering of natural products”; I never heard of one yet
That parted men from those they loved, never to meet again!
Old men—weeping for their grandsons; mothers for their children!
One day—Yang Ch’eng came to govern the land;
He refused to send up dwarf slaves in spite of incessant mandates.
He replied to the Emperor “Your servant finds in the Six Canonical Books
‘In offering products, one must offer what is there, and not what isn’t there’
On the waters and lands of Tao-chou, among all the things that live
I only find dwarfish people; no dwarfish slaves.”
The Emperor’s heart was deeply moved and he sealed and sent a scroll
“The yearly tribute of dwarfish slaves is henceforth annulled.”
The people of Tao-chou,
Old ones and young ones, how great their joy!
Father with son and brother with brother henceforward kept together;
From that day for ever more they lived as free men.
The people of Tao-chou
Still enjoy this gift.
And even now when they speak of the Governor
Tears start to their eyes.
And lest their children and their children’s children should forget the Governor’s name,
When boys are born the syllable “Yang” is often used in their forename.
THE OLD HARP Of cord and cassia-wood is the harp compounded:
Within it lie ancient melodies.
Ancient melodies—weak and savourless,
Not appealing to present men’s taste.
Light and colour are faded from the jade stops:
Dust has covered the rose-red strings.
Decay and ruin came to it long ago,
But the sound that is left is still cold and clear.
I do not refuse to play it, if you want me to:
But even if I play, people will not listen.
How did it come to be neglected so?
Because of the Ch’iang flute and the Ch’in flageolet.[53]
THE HARPER OF CHAO The singers have hushed their notes of clear song:
The red sleeves of the dancers are motionless.
Hugging his lute, the old harper of Chao
Rocks and sways as he touches the five chords.
The loud notes swell and scatter abroad:
“Sa, sa,” like wind blowing the rain.
The soft notes dying almost to nothing:
“Ch’ieh, ch’ieh,” like the voice of ghosts talking.
Now as glad as the magpie’s lucky song:
Again bitter as the gibbon’s ominous cry.
His ten fingers have no fixed note:
Up and down—“kung,” chih, and yÜ.[54]
And those who sit and listen to the tune he plays
Of soul and body lose the mastery.
And those who pass that way as he plays the tune,
Suddenly stop and cannot raise their feet.
Alas, alas that the ears of common men
Should love the modern and not love the old.
Thus it is that the harp in the green window
Day by day is covered deeper with dust.
THE FLOWER MARKET In the Royal City spring is almost over:
Tinkle, tinkle—the coaches and horsemen pass.
We tell each other “This is the peony season”:
And follow with the crowd that goes to the Flower Market.
“Cheap and dear—no uniform price:
The cost of the plant depends on the number of blossoms.
For the fine flower,—a hundred pieces of damask:
For the cheap flower,—five bits of silk.
Above is spread an awning to protect them:
Around is woven a wattle-fence to screen them.
If you sprinkle water and cover the roots with mud,
When they are transplanted, they will not lose their beauty.”
Each household thoughtlessly follows the custom,
Man by man, no one realizing.
There happened to be an old farm labourer
Who came by chance that way.
He bowed his head and sighed a deep sigh:
But this sigh nobody understood.
He was thinking, “A cluster of deep-red flowers
Would pay the taxes of ten poor houses.”
THE PRISONER Tartars led in chains,
Tartars led in chains!
Their ears pierced, their faces bruised—they are driven into the land of Ch’in.
The Son of Heaven took pity on them and would not have them slain.
He sent them away to the south-east, to the lands of Wu and YÜeh.
A petty officer in a yellow coat took down their names and surnames:
They were led from the city of Ch’ang-an under escort of an armed guard.
Their bodies were covered with the wounds of arrows, their bones stood out from their cheeks.
They had grown so weak they could only march a single stage a day.
In the morning they must satisfy hunger and thirst with neither plate nor cup:
At night they must lie in their dirt and rags on beds that stank with filth.
Suddenly they came to the Yangtze River and remembered the waters of Chiao.[55]
With lowered hands and levelled voices they sobbed a muffled song.
Then one Tartar lifted up his voice and spoke to the other Tartars,
“Your sorrows are none at all compared with my sorrows.”
Those that were with him in the same band asked to hear his tale:
As he tried to speak the words were choked by anger.
He told them “I was born and bred in the town of Liang-yÜan.[56]
In the frontier wars of Ta-li[57] I fell into the Tartars’ hands.
Since the days the Tartars took me alive forty years have passed:
They put me into a coat of skins tied with a belt of rope.
Only on the first of the first month might I wear my Chinese dress.
As I put on my coat and arranged my cap, how fast the tears flowed!
I made in my heart a secret vow I would find a way home:
I hid my plan from my Tartar wife and the children she had borne me in the land.
I thought to myself, ‘It is well for me that my limbs are still strong,’
And yet, being old, in my heart I feared I should never live to return.
The Tartar chieftains shoot so well that the birds are afraid to fly:
From the risk of their arrows I escaped alive and fled swiftly home.
Hiding all day and walking all night, I crossed the Great Desert:[58]
Where clouds are dark and the moon black and the sands eddy in the wind.
Frightened, I sheltered at the Green Grave,[59] where the frozen grasses are few:
Stealthily I crossed the Yellow River, at night, on the thin ice,
Suddenly I heard Han[60] drums and the sound of soldiers coming:
I went to meet them at the road-side, bowing to them as they came.
But the moving horsemen did not hear that I spoke the Han tongue:
Their Captain took me for a Tartar born and had me bound in chains.
They are sending me away to the south-east, to a low and swampy land:
No one now will take pity on me: resistance is all in vain.
Thinking of this, my voice chokes and I ask of Heaven above,
Was I spared from death only to spend the rest of my years in sorrow?
My native village of Liang-yÜan I shall not see again:
My wife and children in the Tartars’ land I have fruitlessly deserted.
When I fell among Tartars and was taken prisoner, I pined for the land of Han:
Now that I am back in the land of Han, they have turned me into a Tartar.
Had I but known what my fate would be, I would not have started home!
For the two lands, so wide apart, are alike in the sorrow they bring.
Tartar prisoners in chains!
Of all the sorrows of all the prisoners mine is the hardest to bear!
Never in the world has so great a wrong befallen the lot of man,—
A Han heart and a Han tongue set in the body of a Turk.”
THE CHANCELLOR’S GRAVEL-DRIVE
(A Satire on the Maltreatment of Subordinates) A Government-bull yoked to a Government-cart!
Moored by the bank of Ch’an River, a barge loaded with gravel.
A single load of gravel,
How many pounds it weighs!
Carrying at dawn, carrying at dusk, what is it all for?
They are carrying it towards the Five Gates,
To the West of the Main Road.
Under the shadow of green laurels they are making a gravel-drive.
For yesterday arrove, newly appointed,
The Assistant Chancellor of the Realm,
And was terribly afraid that the wet and mud
Would dirty his horse’s hoofs.
The Chancellor’s horse’s hoofs
Stepped on the gravel and remained perfectly clean;
But the bull employed in dragging the cart
Was almost sweating blood.
The Assistant Chancellor’s business
Is to “save men, govern the country
And harmonize Yin and Yang.”[61]
Whether the bull’s neck is sore
Need not trouble him at all.
THE MAN WHO DREAMED OF FAIRIES There was once a man who dreamt he went to Heaven:
His dream-body soared aloft through space.
He rode on the back of a white-plumed crane,
And was led on his flight by two crimson banners.
Whirring of wings and flapping of coat tails!
Jade bells suddenly all a-tinkle!
Half way to Heaven, he looked down beneath him,
Down on the dark turmoil of the World.
Gradually he lost the place of his native town;
Mountains and water—nothing else distinct.
The Eastern Ocean—a single strip of white:
The Hills of China,—five specks of green.
Gliding past him a host of fairies swept
In long procession to the Palace of the Jade City.
How should he guess that the children of Tzu-men[62]
Bow to the throne like courtiers of earthly kings?
They take him to the presence of the Mighty Jade Emperor:
He bows his head and proffers loyal homage.
The Emperor says: “We see you have fairy talents:
Be of good heart and do not slight yourself.
We shall send to fetch you in fifteen years
And give you a place in the Courtyard of Immortality.”
Twice bowing, he acknowledged the gracious words:
Then woke from sleep, full of wonder and joy.
He hid his secret and dared not tell it abroad:
But vowed a vow he would live in a cave of rock.
From love and affection he severed kith and kin:
From his eating and drinking he omitted savoury and spice.
His morning meal was a dish of coral-dust:
At night he sipped an essence of dewy mists.
In the empty mountains he lived for thirty years
Daily watching for the Heavenly Coach to come.
The time of appointment was already long past,
But of wings and coach-bells—still no sound.
His teeth and hair daily withered and decayed:
His ears and eyes gradually lost their keenness.
One morning he suffered the Common Change
And his body was one with the dust and dirt of the hill.
Gods and fairies! If indeed such things there be,
Their ways are beyond the striving of mortal men.
If you have not on your skull the Golden Bump’s protrusion,
If your name is absent from the rolls of the Red Terrace,
In vain you learn the “Method of Avoiding Food”:
For naught you study the “Book of Alchemic Lore.”
Though you sweat and toil, what shall your trouble bring?
You will only shorten the five-score years of your span.
Sad, alas, the man who dreamt of Fairies!
For a single dream spoiled his whole life.
MAGIC Boundless, the great sea.
Straight down,—no bottom: sideways,—no border.
Of cloudy waves and misty billows down in the uttermost depths
Men have fabled, in the midst there stand three sacred hills.
On the hills, thick growing,—herbs that banish Death.
Wings grow on those who eat them and they turn into heavenly “hsien.”
The Lord of Ch’in[63] and Wu of Han[64] believed in these stories:
And magic-workers year by year were sent to gather the herbs.
The Blessed Islands, now and of old, what but an empty tale?
The misty waters spread before them and they knew not where to seek.
Boundless, the great sea.
Dauntless, the mighty wind.
Their eyes search but cannot see the shores of the Blessed Islands.
They cannot find the Blessed Isles and yet they dare not return:
Youths and maidens that began the quest grew grey on board the boat.
They found that the writings of HsÜ[65] were all boasts and lies:
To the Lofty Principle and Great Unity in vain they raised their prayers.
Do you not see
The graves on the top of Black Horse Hill[66] and the tombs at Mo-ling?[67]
What is left but the sighing wind blowing in the tangled grasses?
Yes, and what is more,
The Dark and Primal Master of Sages in his five thousand words[68]
Never spoke of herbs,
Never spoke of “hsien,”
Nor spoke of soaring in broad daylight up to the blue heaven.
[63] The “First Emperor,” 259-210 B.C. THE TWO RED TOWERS
(A Satire against Clericalism) The Two Red Towers
North and south rise facing each other.
I beg to ask, to whom do they belong?
To the two Princes of the period Cheng YÜan.[69]
The two Princes blew on their flutes and drew down fairies from the sky,
Who carried them off through the Five Clouds, soaring away to Heaven.
Their halls and houses, that they could not take with them,
Were turned into Temples planted in the Dust of the World.
In the tiring-rooms and dancers’ towers all is silent and still;
Only the willows like dancers’ arms, and the pond like a mirror.
When the flowers are falling at yellow twilight, when things are sad and hushed,
One does not hear songs and flutes, but only chimes and bells.
The Imperial Patent on the Temple doors is written in letters of gold;
For nuns’ quarters and monks’ cells ample space is allowed.
For green moss and bright moonlight—plenty of room provided;
In a hovel opposite is a sick man who has hardly room to lie down.
I remember once when at P’ing-yang they were building a great man’s house
How it swallowed up the housing space of thousands of ordinary men.
The Immortals[70] are leaving us, two by two, and their houses are turned into Temples;
I begin to fear that the whole world will become a vast convent.
THE CHARCOAL-SELLER
(A Satire against “Kommandatur”) An old charcoal-seller
Cutting wood and burning charcoal in the forests of the Southern Mountain.
His face, stained with dust and ashes, has turned to the colour of smoke.
The hair on his temples is streaked with gray: his ten fingers are black.
The money he gets by selling charcoal, how far does it go?
It is just enough to clothe his limbs and put food in his mouth.
Although, alas, the coat on his back is a coat without lining.
He hopes for the coming of cold weather, to send up the price of coal!
Last night, outside the city,—a whole foot of snow;
At dawn he drives the charcoal wagon along the frozen ruts.
Oxen,—weary; man,—hungry: the sun, already high;
Outside the Gate, to the south of the Market, at last they stop in the mud.
Suddenly, a pair of prancing horsemen. Who can it be coming?
A public official in a yellow coat and a boy in a white shirt.
In their hands they hold a written warrant: on their tongues—the words of an order;
They turn back the wagon and curse the oxen, leading them off to the north.
A whole wagon of charcoal,
More than a thousand pieces!
If officials choose to take it away, the woodman may not complain.
Half a piece of red silk and a single yard of damask,
The Courtiers have tied to the oxen’s collar, as the price
of a wagon of coal!
THE POLITICIAN I was going to the City to sell the herbs I had plucked;
On the way I rested by some trees at the Blue Gate.
Along the road there came a horseman riding;
Whose face was pale with a strange look of dread.
Friends and relations, waiting to say good-bye,
Pressed at his side, but he did not dare to pause.
I, in wonder, asked the people about me
Who he was and what had happened to him.
They told me this was a Privy Councillor
Whose grave duties were like the pivot of State.
His food allowance was ten thousand cash;
Three times a day the Emperor came to his house.
Yesterday he was called to a meeting of Heroes:
To-day he is banished to the country of Yai-chou.
So always, the Counsellors of Kings;
Favour and ruin changed between dawn and dusk!
Green, green,—the grass of the Eastern Suburb;
And amid the grass, a road that leads to the hills.
Resting in peace among the white clouds,
At last he has made a “coup” that cannot fail!
THE OLD MAN WITH THE BROKEN ARM
(A Satire on Militarism) At Hsin-feng an old man—four-score and eight;
The hair on his head and the hair of his eyebrows—white as the new snow.
Leaning on the shoulders of his great-grandchildren, he walks in front of the Inn;
With his left arm he leans on their shoulders; his right arm is broken.
I asked the old man how many years had passed since he broke his arm;
I also asked the cause of the injury, how and why it happened?
The old man said he was born and reared in the District of Hsin-feng;
At the time of his birth—a wise reign; no wars or discords.
“Often I listened in the Pear-Tree Garden to the sound of flute and song;
Naught I knew of banner and lance; nothing of arrow or bow.
Then came the wars of T’ien-pao[71] and the great levy of men;
Of three men in each house,—one man was taken.
And those to whom the lot fell, where were they taken to?
Five months’ journey, a thousand miles—away to YÜn-nan.
We heard it said that in YÜn-nan there flows the Lu River;
As the flowers fall from the pepper-trees, poisonous vapours rise.
When the great army waded across, the water seethed like a cauldron;
When barely ten had entered the water, two or three were dead.
To the north of my village, to the south of my village the sound of weeping and wailing.
Children parting from fathers and mothers; husbands parting from wives.
Everyone says that in expeditions against the Min tribes
Of a million men who are sent out, not one returns.
I, that am old, was then twenty-four;
My name and fore-name were written down in the rolls of the Board of War.
In the depth of the night not daring to let any one know
I secretly took a huge stone and dashed it against my arm.
For drawing the bow and waving the banner now wholly unfit;
I knew henceforward I should not be sent to fight in YÜn-nan.
Bones broken and sinews wounded could not fail to hurt;
I was ready enough to bear pain, if only I got back home.
My arm—broken ever since; it was sixty years ago.
One limb, although destroyed,—whole body safe!
But even now on winter nights when the wind and rain blow
From evening on till day’s dawn I cannot sleep for pain.
Not sleeping for pain
Is a small thing to bear,
Compared with the joy of being alive when all the rest are dead.
For otherwise, years ago, at the ford of Lu River
My body would have died and my soul hovered by the bones that no one gathered.
A ghost, I’d have wandered in YÜn-nan, always looking for home.
Over the graves of ten thousand soldiers, mournfully hovering.”
So the old man spoke.
And I bid you listen to his words
Have you not heard
That the Prime Minister of K’ai-yÜan,[72] Sung K’ai-fu,
Did not reward frontier exploits, lest a spirit of aggression should prevail?
And have you not heard
That the Prime Minister of T’ien-Pao, Yang Kuo-chung[73]
Desiring to win imperial favour, started a frontier war?
But long before he could win the war, people had lost their temper;
Ask the man with the broken arm in the village of Hsin-feng?
KEPT WAITING IN THE BOAT AT CHIU-K’OU TEN DAYS BY AN ADVERSE WIND White billows and huge waves block the river crossing;
Wherever I go, danger and difficulty; whatever I do, failure.
Just as in my worldly career I wander and lose the road,
So when I come to the river crossing, I am stopped by contrary winds.
Of fishes and prawns sodden in the rain the smell fills my nostrils;
With the stings of insects that come with the fog, my whole body is sore.
I am growing old, time flies, and my short span runs out.
While I sit in a boat at Chiu-k’ou, wasting ten days!
ON BOARD SHIP: READING YÜAN CHEN’S POEMS I take your poems in my hand and read them beside the candle;
The poems are finished: the candle is low: dawn not yet come.
With sore eyes by the guttering candle still I sit in the dark,
Listening to waves that, driven by the wind, strike the prow of the ship.
ARRIVING AT HSÜN-YANG
(Two Poems) (1) A bend of the river brings into view two triumphal arches;
That is the gate in the western wall of the suburbs of HsÜn-yang.
I have still to travel in my solitary boat three or four leagues—
By misty waters and rainy sands, while the yellow dusk thickens.
(2) We are almost come to HsÜn-yang: how my thoughts are stirred
As we pass to the south of YÜ Liang’s[74] tower and the east of P’en Port.
The forest trees are leafless and withered,—after the mountain rain;
The roofs of the houses are hidden low among the river mists.
The horses, fed on water grass, are too weak to carry their load;
The cottage walls of wattle and thatch let the wind blow on one’s bed.
In the distance I see red-wheeled coaches driving from the town-gate;
They have taken the trouble, these civil people, to meet their new Prefect!
MADLY SINGING IN THE MOUNTAINS There is no one among men that has not a special failing:
And my failing consists in writing verses.
I have broken away from the thousand ties of life:
But this infirmity still remains behind.
Each time that I look at a fine landscape:
Each time that I meet a loved friend,
I raise my voice and recite a stanza of poetry
And am glad as though a God had crossed my path.
Ever since the day I was banished to HsÜn-yang
Half my time I have lived among the hills.
And often, when I have finished a new poem,
Alone I climb the road to the Eastern Rock.
I lean my body on the banks of white stone:
I pull down with my hands a green cassia branch.
My mad singing startles the valleys and hills:
The apes and birds all come to peep.
Fearing to become a laughing-stock to the world,
I choose a place that is unfrequented by men.
RELEASING A MIGRANT “YEN” (WILD GOOSE) At Nine Rivers,[75] in the tenth year,[76] in winter,—heavy snow;
The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their load.[77]
The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went flying east and west;
And with them flew a migrant “yen,” loudly clamouring for food.
Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the ice:
It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was slow.
The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew;
They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there alive.
I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here:
Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the south.
And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile’s heart,
I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds.
Yen, Yen, flying to the clouds, tell me, whither shall you go?
Of all things I bid you, do not fly to the land of the north-west
In Huai-hsi there are rebel bands[78] that have not been subdued;
And a thousand thousand armoured men have long been camped in war.
The official army and the rebel army have grown old in their opposite trenches;
The soldier’s rations have grown so small, they’ll be glad of even you.
The brave boys, in their hungry plight, will shoot you and eat your flesh;
They will pluck from your body those long feathers and make them into arrow-wings!
TO A PORTRAIT PAINTER WHO DESIRED HIM TO SIT You, so bravely splashing reds and blues!
Just when I am getting wrinkled and old.
Why should you waste the moments of inspiration
Tracing the withered limbs of a sick man?
Tall, tall is the Palace of Ch’i-lin;[79]
But my deeds have not been frescoed on its walls.
Minutely limned on a foot of painting silk—
What can I do with a portrait such as that?
SEPARATION Yesterday I heard that such-a-one was gone;
This morning they tell me that so-and-so is dead.
Of friends and acquaintances more than two-thirds
Have suffered change and passed to the Land of Ghosts.
Those that are gone I shall not see again;
They, alas, are for ever finished and done.
Those that are left,—where are they now?
They are all scattered,—a thousand miles away.
Those I have known and loved through all my life,
On the fingers of my hand—how many do I count?
Only the prefects of T’ung, Kuo and Li
And Feng Province—just those four.[80]
Longing for each other we are all grown gray;
Through the Fleeting World rolled like a wave in the stream.
Alas that the feasts and frolics of old days
Have withered and vanished, bringing us to this!
When shall we meet and drink a cup of wine
And laughing gaze into each other’s eyes?
HAVING CLIMBED TO THE TOPMOST PEAK OF THE INCENSE-BURNER MOUNTAIN Up and up, the Incense-burner Peak!
In my heart is stored what my eyes and ears perceived.
All the year—detained by official business;
To-day at last I got a chance to go.
Grasping the creepers, I clung to dangerous rocks;
My hands and feet—weary with groping for hold.
There came with me three or four friends,
But two friends dared not go further.
At last we reached the topmost crest of the Peak;
My eyes were blinded, my soul rocked and reeled.
The chasm beneath me—ten thousand feet;
The ground I stood on, only a foot wide.
If you have not exhausted the scope of seeing and hearing,
How can you realize the wideness of the world?
The waters of the River looked narrow as a ribbon,
P’en Castle smaller than a man’s fist.
How it clings, the dust of the world’s halter!
It chokes my limbs: I cannot shake it away.
Thinking of retirement,[81] I heaved an envious sigh,
Then, with lowered head, came back to the Ants’ Nest.
EATING BAMBOO-SHOOTS My new Province is a land of bamboo-groves:
Their shoots in spring fill the valleys and hills.
The mountain woodman cuts an armful of them
And brings them down to sell at the early market.
Things are cheap in proportion as they are common;
For two farthings, I buy a whole bundle.
I put the shoots in a great earthen pot
And heat them up along with boiling rice.
The purple nodules broken,—like an old brocade;
The white skin opened,—like new pearls.
Now every day I eat them recklessly;
For a long time I have not touched meat.
All the time I was living at Lo-yang
They could not give me enough to suit my taste,
Now I can have as many shoots as I please;
For each breath of the south-wind makes a new bamboo!
THE RED COCKATOO Sent as a present from Annam—
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.
And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.
AFTER LUNCH After lunch—one short nap:
On waking up—two cups of tea.
Raising my head, I see the sun’s light
Once again slanting to the south-west.
Those who are happy regret the shortness of the day;
Those who are sad tire of the year’s sloth.
But those whose hearts are devoid of joy or sadness
Just go on living, regardless of “short” or “long.”
ALARM AT FIRST ENTERING THE YANG-TZE GORGES Above, a mountain ten thousand feet high:
Below, a river a thousand fathoms deep.
A strip of green, walled by cliffs of stone:
Wide enough for the passage of a single reed.[82]
At ChÜ-t’ang a straight cleft yawns:
At Yen-yÜ islands block the stream.
Long before night the walls are black with dusk;
Without wind white waves rise.
The big rocks are like a flat sword:
The little rocks resemble ivory tusks.
We are stuck fast and cannot move a step.
How much the less, three hundred miles?[83]
Frail and slender, the twisted-bamboo rope:
Weak, the dangerous hold of the towers’ feet.
A single slip—the whole convoy lost:
And my life hangs on this thread!
I have heard a saying “He that has an upright heart
Shall walk scathless through the lands of Man and Mo.”[84]
How can I believe that since the world began
In every shipwreck none have drowned but rogues?
And how can I, born in evil days[85]
And fresh from failure,[86] ask a kindness of Fate?
Often I fear that these un-talented limbs
Will be laid at last in an un-named grave!
ON BEING REMOVED FROM HSÜN-YANG AND SENT TO CHUNG-CHOU Before this, when I was stationed at HsÜn-yang,
Already I regretted the fewness of friends and guests.
Suddenly, suddenly,—bearing a stricken heart
I left the gates, with nothing to comfort me.
Henceforward,—relegated to deep seclusion
In a bottomless gorge, flanked by precipitous mountains,
Five months on end the passage of boats is stopped
By the piled billows that toss and leap like colts.
The inhabitants of Pa resemble wild apes;
Fierce and lusty, they fill the mountains and prairies.
Among such as these I cannot hope for friends
And am pleased with anyone who is even remotely human!
PLANTING FLOWERS ON THE EASTERN EMBANKMENT I took money and bought flowering trees
And planted them out on the bank to the east of the Keep.
I simply bought whatever had most blooms,
Not caring whether peach, apricot, or plum.
A hundred fruits, all mixed up together;
A thousand branches, flowering in due rotation.
Each has its season coming early or late;
But to all alike the fertile soil is kind.
The red flowers hang like a heavy mist;
The white flowers gleam like a fall of snow.
The wandering bees cannot bear to leave them;
The sweet birds also come there to roost.
In front there flows an ever-running stream;
Beneath there is built a little flat terrace.
Sometimes I sweep the flagstones of the terrace;
Sometimes, in the wind, I raise my cup and drink.
The flower-branches screen my head from the sun;
The flower-buds fall down into my lap.
Alone drinking, alone singing my songs
I do not notice that the moon is level with the steps.
The people of Pa do not care for flowers;
All the spring no one has come to look.
But their Governor General, alone with his cup of wine
Sits till evening and will not move from the place!
CHILDREN My niece, who is six years old, is called “Miss Tortoise”;
My daughter of three,—little “Summer Dress.”
One is beginning to learn to joke and talk;
The other can already recite poems and songs.
At morning they play clinging about my feet;
At night they sleep pillowed against my dress.
Why, children, did you reach the world so late,
Coming to me just when my years are spent?
Young things draw our feelings to them;
Old people easily give their hearts.
The sweetest vintage at last turns sour;
The full moon in the end begins to wane.
And so with men the bonds of love and affection
Soon may change to a load of sorrow and care.
But all the world is bound by love’s ties;
Why did I think that I alone should escape?
PRUNING TREES Trees growing—right in front of my window;
The trees are high and the leaves grow thick.
Sad alas! the distant mountain view
Obscured by this, dimly shows between.
One morning I took knife and axe;
With my own hand I lopped the branches off.
Ten thousand leaves fall about my head;
A thousand hills came before my eyes.
Suddenly, as when clouds or mists break
And straight through, the blue sky appears;
Again, like the face of a friend one has loved
Seen at last after an age of parting.
First there came a gentle wind blowing;
One by one the birds flew back to the tree.
To ease my mind I gazed to the South East;
As my eyes wandered, my thoughts went far away.
Of men there is none that has not some preference;
Of things there is none but mixes good with ill.
It was not that I did not love the tender branches;
But better still,—to see the green hills!
BEING VISITED BY A FRIEND DURING ILLNESS I have been ill so long that I do not count the days;
At the southern window, evening—and again evening.
Sadly chirping in the grasses under my eaves
The winter sparrows morning and evening sing.
By an effort I rise and lean heavily on my bed;
Tottering I step towards the door of the courtyard.
By chance I meet a friend who is coming to see me;
Just as if I had gone specially to meet him.
They took my couch and placed it in the setting sun;
They spread my rug and I leaned on the balcony-pillar.
Tranquil talk was better than any medicine;
Gradually the feelings came back to my numbed heart.
ON THE WAY TO HANGCHOW: ANCHORED ON THE RIVER AT NIGHT Little sleeping and much grieving,—the traveller
Rises at midnight and looks back towards home.
The sands are bright with moonlight that joins the shores;
The sail is white with dew that has covered the boat.
Nearing the sea, the river grows broader and broader:
Approaching autumn,—the nights longer and longer.
Thirty times we have slept amid mists and waves,
And still we have not reached Hang-chow!
STOPPING THE NIGHT AT JUNG-YANG I grew up at Jung-yang;
I was still young when I left.
On and on,—forty years passed
Till again I stayed for the night at Jung-yang.
When I went away, I was only eleven or twelve;
This year I am turned fifty-six.
Yet thinking back to the times of my childish games,
Whole and undimmed, still they rise before me.
The old houses have all disappeared;
Down in the village none of my people are left.
It is not only that streets and buildings have changed;
But steep is level and level changed to steep!
Alone unchanged, the waters of Ch’iu and Yu
Passionless,—flow in their old course.
THE SILVER SPOON To distant service my heart is well accustomed;
When I left home, it wasn’t that which was difficult
But because I had to leave Miss Kuei at home—
For this it was that tears filled my eyes.
Little girls ought to be daintily fed:
Mrs. Ts’ao, please see to this!
That’s why I’ve packed and sent a silver spoon;
You will think of me and eat up your food nicely!
THE HAT GIVEN TO THE POET BY LI CHIEN Long ago to a white-haired gentleman
You made the present of a black gauze hat.
The gauze hat still sits on my head;
But you already are gone to the Nether Springs.
The thing is old, but still fit to wear;
The man is gone and will never be seen again.
Out on the hill the moon is shining to-night
And the trees on your tomb are swayed by the autumn wind.
THE BIG RUG That so many of the poor should suffer from cold what can we do to prevent?
To bring warmth to a single body is not much use.
I wish I had a big rug ten thousand feet long,
Which at one time could cover up every inch of the City.
AFTER GETTING DRUNK, BECOMING SOBER IN THE NIGHT Written on the wall of a priest’s cell, circa 828 Ever since the time when I was a lusty boy
Down till now when I am ill and old,
The things I have cared for have been different at different times,
But my being busy, that has never changed.
Then on the shore,—building sand-pagodas;
Now, at Court, covered with tinkling jade.
This and that,—equally childish games,
Things whose substance passes in a moment of time!
While the hands are busy, the heart cannot understand;
When there are no Scriptures, then Doctrine is sound.[87]
Even should one zealously strive to learn the Way,
That very striving will make one’s error more.
RISING LATE AND PLAYING WITH A-TS’UI, AGED TWO All the morning I have lain perversely in bed;
Now at dusk I rise with many yawns.
My warm stove is quick to get ablaze;
At the cold mirror I am slow in doing my hair.
With melted snow I boil fragrant tea;
Seasoned with curds I cook a milk-pudding.
At my sloth and greed there is no one but me to laugh;
My cheerful vigour none but myself knows.
The taste of my wine is mild and works no poison;
The notes of my harp are soft and bring no sadness.
To the Three Joys in the book of Mencius[88]
I have added the fourth of playing with my baby-boy.
ON A BOX CONTAINING HIS OWN WORKS I break up cypress and make a book-box;
The box well-made,—and the cypress-wood tough.
In it shall be kept what author’s works?
The inscription says PO LO-T’IEN.
All my life has been spent in writing books,
From when I was young till now that I am old.
First and last,—seventy whole volumes;
Big and little,—three thousand themes.[89]
Well I know in the end they’ll be scattered and lost;
But I cannot bear to see them thrown away
With my own hand I open and shut the locks,
And put it carefully in front of the book-curtain.
I am like Teng Pai-tao;[90]
But to-day there is not any Wang Ts’an.[91]
All I can do is to divide them among my daughters
To be left by them to give to my grandchildren.
ON BEING SIXTY Between thirty and forty, one is distracted by the Five Lusts;
Between seventy and eighty, one is a prey to a hundred diseases.
But from fifty to sixty one is free from all ills;
Calm and still—the heart enjoys rest.
I have put behind me Love and Greed; I have done with Profit and Fame;
I am still short of illness and decay and far from decrepit age.
Strength of limb I still possess to seek the rivers and hills;
Still my heart has spirit enough to listen to flutes and strings.
At leisure I open new wine and taste several cups;
Drunken I recall old poems and sing a whole volume.
Meng-te has asked for a poem and herewith I exhort him
Not to complain of three-score, “the time of obedient ears.”[92]
CLIMBING THE TERRACE OF KUAN-YIN AND LOOKING AT THE CITY Hundreds of houses, thousands of houses,—like a chess-board.
The twelve streets like a field planted with rows of cabbage.
In the distance perceptible, dim, dim—the fire of approaching dawn;
And a single row of stars lying to the west of the Five Gates.
CLIMBING THE LING YING TERRACE AND LOOKING NORTH Mounting on high I begin to realize the smallness of Man’s Domain;
Gazing into distance I begin to know the vanity of the Carnal World.
I turn my head and hurry home—back to the Court and Market,
A single grain of rice falling—into the Great Barn.
GOING TO THE MOUNTAINS WITH A LITTLE DANCING GIRL, AGED FIFTEEN Two top-knots not yet plaited into one.
Of thirty years—just beyond half.
You who are really a lady of silks and satins
Are now become my hill and stream companion!
At the spring fountains together we splash and play:
On the lovely trees together we climb and sport.
Her cheeks grow rosy, as she quickens her sleeve-dancing:
Her brows grow sad, as she slows her song’s tune.
Don’t go singing the Song of the Willow Branches,[93]
When there’s no one here with a heart for you to break!
DREAMING OF YÜAN CHEN At night you came and took my hand and we wandered together in my dream;
When I woke in the morning there was no one to stop the tears that fell on my handkerchief.
On the banks of the Ch’ang my aged body three times[94] has passed through sickness;
At Hsien-yang[95] to the grasses on your grave eight times has autumn come.
You lie buried beneath the springs and your bones are mingled with the clay.
I—lodging in the world of men; my hair white as snow.
A-wei and Han-lang[96] both followed in their turn;
Among the shadows of the Terrace of Night did you know them or not?
A DREAM OF MOUNTAINEERING At night, in my dream, I stoutly climbed a mountain.
Going out alone with my staff of holly-wood.
A thousand crags, a hundred hundred valleys—
In my dream-journey none were unexplored
And all the while my feet never grew tired
And my step was as strong as in my young days.
Can it be that when the mind travels backward
The body also returns to its old state?
And can it be, as between body and soul,
That the body may languish, while the soul is still strong?
Soul and body—both are vanities:
Dreaming and waking—both alike unreal.
In the day my feet are palsied and tottering;
In the night my steps go striding over the hills.
As day and night are divided in equal parts—
Between the two, I get as much as I lose.
EASE Lined coat, warm cap and easy felt slippers,
In the little tower, at the low window, sitting over the sunken brazier.
Body at rest, heart at peace; no need to rise early.
I wonder if the courtiers at the Western Capital know of these things, or not?
ON HEARING SOMEONE SING A POEM BY YÜAN CHEN No new poems his brush will trace:
Even his fame is dead.
His old poems are deep in dust
At the bottom of boxes and cupboards.
Once lately, when someone was singing,
Suddenly I heard a verse—
Before I had time to catch the words
A pain had stabbed my heart.
THE PHILOSOPHERS Lao-tzu “Those who speak know nothing;
Those who know are silent.”
These words, as I am told,
Were spoken by Lao-tzu.
If we are to believe that Lao-tzu
Was himself one who knew,
How comes it that he wrote a book
Of five thousand words?
Chuang-tzu, the Monist Chuang-tzu levels all things
And reduces them to the same Monad.
But I say that even in their sameness
Difference may be found.
Although in following the promptings of their nature
They display the same tendency,
Yet it seems to me that in some ways
A phoenix is superior to a reptile!
TAOISM AND BUDDHISM A traveller came from across the seas
Telling of strange sights.
“In a deep fold of the sea-hills
I saw a terrace and tower.
In the midst there stood a Fairy Temple
With one niche empty.
They all told me this was waiting
For Lo-t’ien to come.”
Traveller, I have studied the Empty Gate;[97]
I am no disciple of Fairies
The story you have just told
Is nothing but an idle tale.
The hills of ocean shall never be
Lo-t’ien’s home.
When I leave the earth it will be to go
To the Heaven of Bliss Fulfilled.[98]
LAST POEM
They have put my bed beside the unpainted screen;
They have shifted my stove in front of the blue curtain.
I listen to my grandchildren, reading me a book;
I watch the servants, heating up my soup.
With rapid pencil I answer the poems of friends;
I feel in my pockets and pull out medicine-money.
When this superintendence of trifling affairs is done,
I lie back on my pillows and sleep with my face to the
South.
THE END CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. |
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(Circa A.D. 812)