Li Bai

“ I cannot prevent Old Yüan from stealing my best rhymes;
But I earnestly beg Little Li to respect my ballads and songs.
While I am alive riches and honour will never fall to my lot;
But well I know that after I am dead the fame of my books will live. ”

“ The regret of our parting will last forever and never end. Notes
↑ Han dynasty is a disguise to avoid literary inquisition. It is actually referencing to Tang dynasty. The Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, whose relationship to Yang Guifei brought to mind the Emperor Wu of Han's relationship to his concubine, Consort Li. Bai Juyi would have considered it unpoetic to refer to his subject directly.↑ Bai Juyi is referring to the story of how Emperor Wu of Han met Consort Li. ”

“ I grant that his works show unparalleled talent and originality, but not one in ten contains any moral reflection or deeper meaning.
[2]
“Tu Fu’s poems are very numerous; perhaps about 1,000 of them are worth preserving. In the art of stringing together allusions ancient and modern and in the skill of his versification in the regular metres he even excels Li Po. But such poems as the ‘Pressgang,’ [1] and such lines as
“‘At the Palace Gate, the smell of wine and meat;
Out in the road, one who has frozen to death’
form only a small proportion of his whole work.” ”

“ This characteristic, common to most Chinese poetry, is carried to an extreme point in the fifty-nine Old Style poems with which the works begin. Not only do they bristle with the names of historical personages, but almost every phrase is borrowed from some classic. One is tempted to quarrel with Wang An-shih’s statement that people liked the poems because they were easy to enjoy. No modern could understand them without pages of commentary to each poem. But Chinese poetry, with a few exceptions, has been written on this principle [5] since the Han dynasty ”

“ If you have the practical it does not necessarily follow that you are lacking in the spiritual. As for present-day Chinese poets, there are several famous ones in China.
Since the lecturer has raised the question whether Li T’ai-po or Tu Fu is the greater poet, I would say that the Chinese of the present day consider Tu Fu to be the greater. It strikes me as curious that European people who know something about Chinese poetry should prefer Li T’ai-po. Perhaps very few people have heard of Tu Fu. Certainly there is no translation of the most important of Tu Fu’s poems in the English language. ”

“ The obsession of impermanence has often been sublimated into great mystic poetry. In Li Po it results only in endless restatement of obvious facts.
It has, I think, been generally realized that his strength lies not in the content, but in the form of his poetry. Above all, he was a song-writer. Most of the pieces translated previously and most of those I am going to read to-day are songs, not poems. It is noteworthy that his tombstone bore the inscription, “His skill lay in the writing of archaic songs.” ”

“ In China every child who has studied poetry knows something about Tu Fu’s poems. Tu Fu is placed first by the Chinese because he is the greatest national poet. He expresses national feelings in a way that can be appreciated by everybody. Li T’ai-po’s poems deal chiefly with wine and women, love and sensual things, but Tu Fu’s poems are full of men and women, elderly people and children, their joy, their anguish, the hardship of the soldier, and things of that sort. In a word, Tu Fu’s poetry expresses what we ordinary men and women wish to express and cannot. ”

“ At the feast our spirits had soared to the Nine Heavens, but before evening we were scattered like stars or rain, flying away over hills and rivers to the frontier of Ch’u. I went back to my mountain to seek my old nest, and you, too, went home, crossing the Wei Bridge.
Then your father, who was brave as leopard or tiger, became Governor of Ping-chou [39] and put down the rebel bands. ”

“ Since the Middle Ages the Chinese have been almost unanimous in regarding Li Po as their greatest poet, and the few who have given the first place to his contemporary Tu Fu have usually accorded the second to Li.
One is reluctant to disregard the verdict of a people upon its own poets. We are sometimes told by Frenchmen or Russians that Oscar Wilde is greater than Shakespeare. We are tempted to reply that no foreigner can be qualified to decide such a point. ”

“ Let me in, Sodewa Bai, if you are indeed alive.' No sooner did he name her name than Sodewa Bai knew his voice, and unbolted the door and let him in. Then, when he saw her sitting on the tomb with the baby on her lap, he fell down on his knees before her, saying, 'Tell me, little wife, that this is not a dream.'—'No,' she answered, 'I am indeed alive, and this our child was born last night; but every day I die; for while you were away some one stole my golden necklace.'
Then for the first time Rowjee Rajah noticed that the beads were no longer round her neck. ”

“ At the street-end I hear the fisher's song.
Misty birds are lost in yellow air;
Windy sails kick the white waves.
In front of my gate the horse and carriage-way
In a single night has turned into a river-bed. ”

“ Following after they bring a wage of meat,
To the strong reapers toiling on the southern hill,
Whose feet are burned by the hot earth they tread,
Whose backs are scorched by flames of the shining sky. ”

“ And because also Seventee Bai looked a very noble Prince, they were the more willing that she should marry Tara Bai, and said, 'Seventee Rajah, we are willing you should be our son-in-law, for you look good and true, and you must be brave, to have come so long and dangerous a journey for your wife; now, therefore, you shall be married; the whole land is open to you, and all that we have is yours, only take good care of our dear daughter, and if ever she or you are unhappy, return here and you shall find a home with us.' So the wedding took place amidst great rejoicings. ”

“ To wait for the moon we walked to the southern moor.
At your quiet gate only birds spoke;
In your distant street few drums were heard.
Opposite each other all day we talked,
And never once spoke of profit or fame.
Since we parted hands, how long has passed?
Thrice and again the full moon has shone. ”

“ Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums?
Barbarous kings.
A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn,
A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom,
Three hundred and sixty thousand,
And sorrow, sorrow like rain.
Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning,
Desolate, desolate fields,
And no children of warfare upon them,
No longer the men for offence and defence. ”

“ By the western eaves, above the bamboo-twigs,
From my couch I see the White Mountain rise.
But the clouds that hover on its far-distant peak
Bring shame to a face that is buried in the World's dust. ”

“ Tell me, why did you come?' Seventee Bai answered, 'I came to see you, beautiful lady; tell me your name, and how it is you are here all alone.' She replied, 'I am the Rakshas' Rajah's only daughter, and my name is Tara Bai (the Star Lady) , and because my father loves me very much he has built this palace for me, and placed this great guard of Rakshas all round it for many thousand miles, to prevent any one coming in or out without his permission. ”

“ The old Rajah and Ranee, knowing the first Ranee's jealous and envious disposition, never liked Sodewa Bai to be much with her; but as they had only a vague fear, and no certain ground for alarm, they could do no more than watch both carefully; and Sodewa Bai, who was guileless and unsuspicious, would remonstrate with them when they warned her not to be so intimate with Rowjee Rajah's other wife, saying, 'I have no fear. I think she loves me as I love her. Why should we disagree? ”

“ In the black darkness are bred sombre thoughts.
On the lotus-banks hovers a dewy breeze;
Through the rice-furrows trickles a singing stream.
At the noise of our bells a sleeping dog stirs;
At the sight of our torches a roosting bird wakes. ”

“ But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
Whatever his lord will.
He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight
Nor any whit else save the wave's slash,
Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.
Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,
Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
On flood-ways to be far departing.
Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
The bitter heart's blood. ”

“ Flutes and strings blend their parting tune.
Hopes achieved dull the pains of parting;
Fumes of wine shorten the long road...
Shod with wings is the horse of him who rides
On a Spring day the road that leads to home. ”

“ I have walked in the morning with hunger in my face;
I have lain at night with a soul that could not rest.
East and West I have wandered without pause,
Hither and thither like a cloud astray in the sky. ”

“ The eastern wind brings the green colour into the island grasses at Yei-shu,
The purple house and the crimson are full of Spring softness.
South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue and bluer,
Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-like palace.
Vine-strings a hundred feet long hang down from carved railings,
And high over the willows, the fine birds sing to each other, and listen,
Crying—“Kwan, Kuan,” for the early wind, and the feel of it.
The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and wanders off. ”

“ He seemed to be regretting that joy will not stay;
That our souls had met only for a little while,
To part again with hardly time for greeting.
I woke up and thought him still at my side;
I put out my hand; there was nothing there at all. ”

“ The guardian of the Pass leaps like a wolf on all who are not his kinsmen.
In the daytime one hides from ravening tigers and in the night from long serpents, that sharpen their fangs and lick blood, slaying men like grass. ”

“ What comfort can the Doctrine of Tao give?
It will teach me to watch the days and months fly
Without grieving that Youth slips away;
If the Fleeting World is but a long dream,
It does not matter whether one is young or old. ”

“ A cup of wine, under the flowering-trees:
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup, I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas! is no drinker of wine:
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks. ”

“ At morning there are flowers to cut the heart,
And evening drives them on the eastward-flowing waters.
Petals are on the gone waters and on the going,
And on the back-swirling eddies,
But to-days men are not the men of the old days,
Though they hang in the same way over the bridge-rail.
The sea's colour moves at the dawn
And the princes still stand in rows, about the throne,
And the moon falls over the portals of Sei-go-yo,
And clings to the walls and the gate-top.
With head-gear glittering against the cloud and sun,
The lords go forth from the court, and into far borders. ”

“ The bird's note cannot really have changed;
All the difference lies in the listener's heart.
If he could but forget that he lives at the World's end,
The bird would sing as it sang in the Palace of old. ”

“ At the rise of summer a hundred beasts and trees
Join in gladness that the Season bids them thrive.
Stags and does frolic in the deep woods;
Snakes and insects are pleased by the rank grass.
Wingèd birds love the thick leaves ”

“ AFTER COLLECTING THE AUTUMN TAXES
From my high castle I look at the town below
Where the natives of Pa cluster like a swarm of flies.
How can I govern these people and lead them aright?
I cannot even understand what they say. ”

“ In length of days and soundness of limb you and I are one;
Our eyes are not wholly blind, nor our ears quite deaf.
Deep drinking we lie together, fellows of a spring day;
Or gay-hearted boldly break into gatherings of young men. ”

“ The jars in my cellar are plastered deep with mould;
My singer's carpets are half crumbled to dust.
How can I bear, when the Earth renews her light,
To watch from a pillow the beauty of Spring unfold? ”

“ It is odd that you should be covered with long robes
and trailing tendrils and flowers;
It is odd that you should be changing your face
and resembling some other woman to plague me;
It is odd that you should be hiding yourself
In the cloud of beautiful women who do not concern me. ”

“ The blue-grey clouds hanging as though they would fall;
The last icicle breaking into splinters of jade;
The new stems marshalling red sprouts.
The things I meet are all full of gladness;
It is not only I who love the Spring. ”

“ Round their railing I walk till night comes.
Do not say that their roots are still weak,
Do not say that their shade is still small;
Already I feel that both in garden and house
Day by day a fresher air moves. ”

“ We entered the yard with only cap and stick.
Still and clear, the first weeks of May,
When trees are green and bushes soft and wet;
When the wind has stolen the shadows of new leaves
And birds linger on the last boughs that bloom. ”

“ This lady in the white bath-robe which she calls a peignoir
Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend,
And the delicate white feet of her little white dog
Are not more delicate than she is,
Nor would Gautier himself have despised their contrasts in whiteness
As she sits in the great chair
Between the two indolent candles. ”