The Collected Poems of Li He
Page 13
Once Emerald Jade had split the melon
Her lute of jade was played by another hand.6
Today things aren’t the same as in the past,
What man is there dare look her in the face.7
3
In sequestered chamber her thoughts unchecked
Do as the bee does in the hearts of flowers.8
Ash lies warm by the crumbling incense-stick,9
Her hair spreads cool beneath blue insect-pins.10
As night wears on, the lamp-flame gutters low,
Soundly she sleeps in the depths of a little screen.
How sweet to dream of coupled mandarin ducks!11
South of the walls they have stopped pounding the blocks.12
4
As a rule, she despised Sung Yu,13
Today she is the wife of this Wen-ying.14
Halberd-handles top his dragon-stands,15
By the cassia window he toys with a ring-handled knife.16
He welcomes his guests wearing a short-sleeved gown,
While sitting upright on a folding chair.17
Her red silk kerchief is drenched with tears,
She watches a crow perched on the painted beams.18
While Studying in Chang-gu, I Showed This Poem To My Servant-Lad from Ba
Insects were singing and the lamplight was wan,
The cold dark heavy with fumes of medicine.
You pitied the one with drooping pinions,1
And through his suffering went on serving him.
The Servant-Lad from Ba Replies
My great nose goes with my mountain dress,
Your beetling brows suit your bitter songs.
If you didn’t chant those ballads of yours,2
Who’d know how much you hated autumn?
I Take Cui’s Place in Seeing Off a Traveller
A traveller’s awning under misty willows,
Horses’ hooves trampling in white.
I’m afraid my friend will suddenly disappear—
How can he bear to use his whip again.1
Leaving the City
Sparse cassia blossom, falling snow,
A crying crow, struck by a bolt, came home.
In a pool by the Pass, a shadow riding a donkey,1
His hat and tassel awry in the Qin wind.2
It felt so good to be back home again,
Yet he could only grieve he held no seal.3
The woman he loved asked him no questions4—
Her face in the mirror bore two streams of tears.
Plant No Trees
Plant no trees in your garden,
Trees fill four seasons with sadness.
Sleeping alone, the moon at my southern window,1
This autumn seems all autumns past.
Setting Out
Mats from my eastern bed are rolled away,
I’m just a misfit off on another journey.
Autumn whitens the infinite heavens,
Moon bathes the high road running past my gates.
Four Poems Written after Looking at a Painting of the Jiang-tan Park
1
Viridian dawn in the park at Wu,1
And palace ladies clad in gosling-yellow,
(Switches of false hair, a touch of rouge and powder)
On horseback with pearls dangling from their belts.
On the road they point to the distant Tai-cheng palace2—
Such fragrance from their sendal riding-skirts!
Journeying clouds drench the kingfisher carriage,3
Today you’d swear you saw King Xiang himself.4
2
Jewelled slips under thin chrysanthemum gowns,
Banana-flowers cold with clustering dew.5
Hair shining like water, glossy as orchid leaves.
Heavy belts patterned with knife-money.6
Once the horn is warm, it’s easy to draw the bow,7
Wearing long boots makes riding difficult.
Last night their bed-curtains were wet with tears,8
Now powdered faces are mirrored in golden saddles.
3
Young goshawks, in slanting line, with scissored wings,
Jessed to swivels of ornamented jade.9
Bridles dangling, filigree-patterned with millet,
Quivers studded with carved ivory.
Baboons screaming deep in the bamboos,
Night-herons standing venerably on wet sand.
As palace servants light the hunting fires,
Flying ashes sully lead-powdered faces.
4
Ten riders clustered together like lotuses,
A red platoon all clad in palace dress.
Their scent has perfumed the magpie hounds,10
As they tramp Black Dragon looking for their arrows,11
The banners are drenched, their gold bells heavy,
Over dry frost jade stirrups dangle empty.12
Today they painted in their brows at dawn,
Not waiting for the bell from Jing-yang tower.13
While Recovering from a Drinking-Bout in the Elder Zhang’s House in Lu-zhou, I Sent This Poem to My Fourteenth Elder Male Cousin through the Agency of a River Messenger.
Only when autumn comes to Zhao-guan,
Will you know how cold it is up here in Zhao.1
I tied this letter to a short-feathered summons,2
Cut out along screed for a recital of woes.
Through the clear dawn I slumbered in my sickness,
While the sparse plane-trees cast fresh emeralds down.
The city crows cried from white battlements,3
Military bugles saddened the mist in the reeds.4
With turban askew, I lifted the silken curtains,5
In dried-up pools the broken lotus lay.
On the wooden window, traces of silver picture,6
On the stone steps water had left its coins.7
The traveller’s wine caught at my ailing lungs,8
While songs of parting rose from languid strings.
I sealed this poem with a double string of tears,
And culled a single orchid wet with dew.
The sedge is growing old, the cricket weeping,
While broken gargoyles peer from withered pines.9
Waking, I sit astride a horse from Yan,10
Dreaming, I voyage on a boat through Chu.11
Pepper and cinnamon poured above long mats!
Perch and bream sliced upon tortoise-shell!12
Surely you can’t forget the roads leading home,
To spend your youth on river-girdled isles?13
Song: Hard to Forget
In the narrow lane, gate faces open gate.
Weeping willows droop over painted halberds.1
Shadows of blinds throw bamboo patterns,
Sound of a flute blowing the sunlight.2
Bees talk to her, circling her vanity mirror,
She paints her brows, studying spring emerald.
Clove branches, intricately interlaced,
Cover the balustrade, flowers turned to the sunset.3
The Noble Son-in-Law of Jia Gong-lü
In full court-dress (robes none too long),
Flower nodding to flower on his stitched gown,
He rides his tinkling white horse,
Its head bowed down with golden trappings.
This morning perfume sickens him,
His coral pillow feels too rough,1
He’s longing for a playful girl,
Drunk on warm sand among the reeds.
Chattering swallows tread the curtain-hooks,
A sunny rainbow emeralds the screen.2
When Governor Pan is in He-yang,
No girl puts death before dishonour.3
Song: Drinking All Night, Asleep All Morning
Flushed with wine she leaves her seat,
As the east grows light.
The sash at her waist is half-untied,
Under weary
stars.
In the willow-garden crows are cawing;
A drunken princess!
Flowers bow down beneath light dew,
Melilote’s breath.
Windlass of jade and rope of silk,
Draw the dawn water,
Her powdered face, like rose carnelian,
Hot and fragrant.1
Drinking all night, asleep all morning,
Not a care in the world,
Beneath her curtains of southern silk,2
Sleeps the Emperor’s child.
Written by the Tomb of Wang Jun
No more little Dongs left in the world today—
Yet still we sing of “Dragons in the Water.”1
White grasses, dead beneath invading mist,
Red coils of autumn goosefoot on the earth.
Ancient writing effaced from the black stones,
The green bronze spirit-sword is broken.2
Ploughlands rising like scales of a fish,
Tomb’s slope sharp as a horse’s mane.3
Petals of chrysanthemum drooping, wet with dew,
Dry wormwood lying on the date-tree path.
Poignant, the harsh fragrance of pine and cypress,
How many nights wind moaned these southern fields!4
The Traveller
An aching heart for a thousand leagues,
Sunshine warm on the rocks of South Mountain.1
I could not stay in the Cheng-ming Lodge,2
Growing old I’ll be a guest of Lord Ping-yuan.3
Four seasons away from my ancestral temple,
Three years gone by since I left my native place.
Often I sing a traveller’s song, beating my sword,4
Sometimes, on a strip of silk, I say I’m coming home.5
After Days of Rain in the Chong-yi District
Who can he be, this sad and lonely man,
Who’s come to suffer autumn in Chang-an?
Young as I am, brooding on stifled sorrows
Weeping in dreams until my hair turns white.
I feed my skinny nag on mouldy hay,
As gusts of rain splash in the chilly gutters.
The Southern Palace is darkened by ancient blinds,
Its sundials blank beneath a watery sun.1
My mountain home’s a thousand leagues away,
East of here, at the very foot of the clouds2
Sleeping in sorrow, my sword-case as my pillow,
In bed at an inn I dream of a marquisate.3
Feng Hsiao-lien
At a bend in the river I saw Xiao-lian
And asked her to play for me on her lute.
Though she dispels our love-lorn melancholy,
How very little she has earned today.1
Her skirt hangs from a belt of bamboo leaves,2
Mist-hung apricot-blossom soaks her hair.
The jade feels chill, the red strings heavy,3
She has saddled her horses and left the palace of Qi.
Presented to Chen Shang
In Chang-an city lives a lad of twenty
Whose heart’s already so much rotten wood.
The Lȧnka sutra heaped upon his table,1
The Songs of Chu piled up beside his elbow.
All his life he’s bowed beneath his troubles,
When twilight falls he sips a little wine.
He knows by now the way is blocked to him,
No need to wait until his hair turns white.
Chen Shu-sheng!—you too are poor and wretched,
Shabbily clad, toiling at rites and music.2
You imitate the style of Yao and Shun,
Despising your fellows for writing decadent prose.3
By my brushwood gates, the carriage-ruts ice over,
Elms fling gaunt shadows as the sun goes down.
You come and visit me in the yellow dusk,
Bitter seasons have etched your face with lines.
Mount Tai-hua soars up forty thousand feet,4
Sundering the earth, it towers above us all.
Not a foot of flat ground anywhere around it,
It strikes the Ox and Dipper in a single bound.5
Though high officials may not sympathize
They cannot put a padlock on my mouth.
For I have taken Tai-hua as my master,
Ensconced myself there to gaze at the white day.
Frost has warped me into a stunted oak,6
Whom kinder weather would make a willow in spring.
The Office of Rites has forced me from my true nature,
I look haggard and worn, like a straw dog cast a side.7
In wind and snow, I serve at the Altar of Fasting,
My black belt threaded through a brazen seal.8
The work I do is fit only for slaves and bond-maids
Who want no more than to wield dustpan and brush.
Whenever will the eyes of Heaven be open
And these antique swords together give a roar?9
Fishing
Fishing in a red canal at the autumn floods,1
I hoped to catch the Fairy’s white silk letter.2
My lone cocoon tangled in water-chestnut thread,3
Beneath wild paddy a couple of fish lay low.4
Dangling a bamboo rod by a clear pool,
I let my long line trail through its emerald void.
A spring newt swung upon my bait
And pulled the little frog from off my hook.5
Fishing filled Master Zhan with boundless joy,6
But plunged the Lord of Long-yang into despair.7
I thought I saw upon the mist-wreathed shore8
A girl from Chu whose tears had soaked her dress.
Poem Presented to My Second Elder Cousin (Its Rhymes Harmonizing with a Poem of His) When He Stopped Being a Messenger, Sent Back His Horse, and Went Home to Yan-Chou
To no avail you kept your yard-long blade,
They could not use your single ball of mud.1
Your horse has gone back to its sandy plains,
You have come home to your native land again.
Once your sad flute played the Long-tou song.2
Spring ashes now filter our joyful wine.3
Your baldric no longer startles wild-geese,
You spur on fighting-cocks in your silken robes.4
Long months have passed since you returned to Wu,
But do not fret, for you’ll enter Ying again,5
You’re a peach-tree in flower, a blossoming plum!
Be sure that they will beat a path to you.6
Presented in Reply
You, sir, are Zhang Gong-zi himself,1
This lady long ago was called “Green Flower.”2
Rich incense fumes in little elephants,
Cawing crows pair off upon the willows.
Dew lies thick on gold-spangled dresses,
A jade tree sprawls among the empty goblets.
The man selling wine in his Lute Hall
Has just bought a flower for his back garden.3
Written on the Wall of Zhao’s House
Your elder wife burns bamboo roots,
Your second wife pounds jade to powder.1
For winter warmth, you gather sticks of pine,
A thin haze, half-discerned, across the sun.
Plane trees green with moss,
Plash of water from a stony spring.2
Sun on your back, you sprawl in the eastern pavilion,
Peach-blossom covering your flesh and bones.3
Spring Melancholy
The warm sun leaves me lonely and depressed,
Blossoms only sadden this Bei-guo Sao.1
Elm-seeds eyed like plough-money,2
Willows fragile as a dancing-girl’s waist.
Our baldaquins welcome the holy swallows,3
With flying silk we see off the shrike.4
Today my northern lute grows rancourous,
Quick-tongued its body of red sanders.5
Strumming his lute, high on a crag of stone,
Sits an immortal sylph flapping his wings.
Whitetail-plumes of a simurgh in his hand,
He sweeps the clouds at night from the Southern Hill.
Deer should drink down in the chill ravines,
Fish swim back to the shores of the clear sea.
Yet during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han
He sent a letter about the spring peach-blossoms.1
Song of He-yang
When you dye silk clothes
Autumn blue is a difficult shade to get.1
Like that man from Lin-chiong2
I am not without a heart.
Blossoms burn in Zhung-dan city,3
But Master Yan is old by now.4
I’m sorry I let those two young girls
Pluck my heart like a spring flower.
Today, I noticed their silver plaques,5
Tonight, they’ll beat jade pendants at a feast.
Ox-heads, a foot high.6
You could hardly miss them, sitting there apart.
Moon rising east,
Wine circling east.7
Greedy mouths red on the flagons.8
A thousand beeswax candles shining.
Song: An Outing among Blossoms
Preface:
On the day of the Cold Food Festival,1 several princes, accompanied by singing-girls, went on a picnic. I was one of the party. I wrote a song called An Outing among Blossoms which harmonized with a poem of Emperor Jian-wen of Liang [regnet 549–51] and gave it to the girls to play and sing.
Spring willows on the southern path,2
Cold flowers degged with chilly dew.
This morning, drunk outside the city walls,
Rubbing our mirrors, we brush on our rich brows.
In drizzling mist we fret in clumsy carriages,
Red oil-cloth covers up our painted clothes.
These dancing-skirts, though perfumed, are not warm,
Our faces flush but slowly from the wine.3