POEMS OF PO CHU-I

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 “yu”.[1] 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.

Little sleeping and much grieving, the traveller Rises at midnight and looks back toward 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 Hangchow!

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[2] and Wu of Han[3] 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 go back; Youths and maidens that began the quest grew gray on board the boat. They found that the writings of Hsü Fu were all boasts and lies; To the Great Unity and Lofty Principle they had raised their prayers in vain. Do you not see The graves on the top of Black Horse Hill and the tombs at Mo-ling?[4] What is left but the sighing wind blowing in the tangled grass? Yes, and what is more, The Dark and Primal Master of Sagas in his five thousand words Never spoke of herbs: never spoke of hsien, Nor spoke of climbing in broad daylight up to the blue of heaven.

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.[5] 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. At twilight when the flowers are falling, 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[6] 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!

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 the waves that strike the ship driven by a head-wind.

A bend of the river brings into view two triumphal arches; This 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. We are almost come to Hsün-yang; how my thoughts are stirred As we pass to the south of Yü-liang’s 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!

Our party scattered at yellow dusk and I came home to bed; I woke at midnight and went for a walk, leaning heavily on a friend. As I lay on my pillow my vinous complexion, soothed by sleep, grew sober; In front of the tower the ocean moon, accompanying the tide, had risen. The swallows, about to return to the beams, went back to roost again; The candle at my window, just going out, suddenly revived its light. All the time till dawn came, still my thoughts were muddled; And in my ears something sounded like the music of flutes and strings.

They have put my bed beside this unpainted screen; They have shifted my stove in front of the blue curtain. I listen to my grandchildren reading to me from a book; I watch the servants heating up the soup. I move my pencil, answering the poems of friends; I feel in my pockets and pull out the medicine money. When this superintendance of trifling affairs is done I lie back on my pillows and sleep with my face to the South.