by Li He
Spring Morning
In Vermilion City1 they announce the spring
As the water-clock turns.
A sunny breeze stirs the lotuses
As it blows through the little palace.
Thin grass can just bear a comb,
Willows long as silk threads.
The Emperor of Qin rolls up the clothes,2
Swallow of Zhao brushes on her powder.3
Sunshine caught in painted drapes,
Bees lighting on silken mats.
Flowers on the Ping-yang rockery,4
Flowers in He-yang county.5
Wives of Yue propping up their looms,6
Wu silkworms spinning cocoons.
Water-chestnuts girdle the shores,
Girls with fans recline by lotus-pools.
South of the Yangzi all is joy,
North of the Passes, boundless lands.
The Palace of Peace and Joy
By the deep well, crows rise from the plane-trees,
As the Wardrobers draw up the crystal water.1
Before the Prince of Shao-ling had washed his face,2
Long, azure waves were stirring in the vase.
When the Palace of Peace and Joy was newly built,
Its roofs were like the phoenix’s outspread wings—
Circling songs, click of waxed castanets,
Zuo Guan himself to act as cup-bearer.3
Now green wormwood saddens these winding waters,
As mountain dogwood parts with its autumn fruits.4
Butterflies Dancing
Willow catkins beat at the curtains,
Under sweltering spring clouds.
Screens of tortoise-shell
And dazzling clothes.
Butterflies from the eastern neighbour
Come fluttering to the west.
Today the young man has returned,
Riding his white steed.1
A Young Nobleman of Liang
He bears the stamp of the Xiao family,
As handsome as that bullrush flower.1
In South Pool lotus seeds ripen,2
Along the Yangzi sand she waters his horse.
On royal notepaper, cold lines of silver,3
Coiled phoenixes across his bamboo mats.
Tao Kan’s willows shade the camp4
Where he writes his letters to a singing-girl.5
Song: Planting Tree-Peonies
When lotus stalks are but half-grown,
Thoroughwort and asarum fading,1
Riding our horses, laden with gold,2
We’re off to hoe peonies.
Water drenches fragrant mud
In their crescent pots,
After one night their green chambers
Greet the white dawn.
Lovely girls chatting tipsily,
Mist-hung gardens.
Evening petals scattered by now,
Butterflies fade.
The Prince of Liang grew old and died,
Sendal robes remain,3
Waving their sleeves as the breeze plays
“Zithers from Shu.”4
Wavering mists return in tatters,
Broidered awnings in shadow,5
Bewitching reds tumble to dust,
Favoured no more.
Master Tan and the Xie girls6—
Where are they sleeping?
Moon shines bright on terrace and tower,
Swallows chatter all night.
Song: Digging a Well in the Back Gardens
Over the well a windlass turns
Upon its bed.
Slapping of water,
Faint murmur of a lute.
What sort of love am I seeking?
That of Xun Feng-qian.1
O sun above the city wall,
Forever stay above the city wall!
Let a single day be as a thousand years,
And never sink to rest.
Song: Throwing Off My Sadness Written under Mount Hua
An autumn wind blows over the earth,
The grasses die,
Mount Hua becomes a sapphire shadow
In the chill of dusk,1
Though I have reached my twentieth year,
I’ve missed my goal.2
My whole heart sad and withered
As a dying orchid.
Clothes like the feathers of a flying quail,3
Horse like a hound,4
Where the road forks I beat my sword
With a brazen roar.
Dismounting at a tavern I shed
My autumn gown,5
Wishing to pledge it for a jar
Of Yi-yang wine.6
Deep in the jar I called on Heaven—
No clouds rolled back,7
The white day stretched a thousand leagues,
Cold and forlorn,
My host urged me to cultivate
Both body and soul,8
Nor care at all if the vulgar crowd
Made mock of me.
Qin Gong
Qin Gong of the Han dynasty was a favourite slave of General Liang Ji. He was also granted the favours of Liang’s wife and so gained the reputation of being arrogant and haughty. I looked into this old story and wrote a long poem on this subject comparing Qin Gong with Feng Zi-du. It is also said that long ago another poem on this subject was extant.1
Waving sleeves of his Yue sendal gown
Greet the spring wind,
He wears a red belt figured with jade
And patterned with unicorns.
A party on top of a palace tower,
Immortals talking,
Mouth-organs playing under awnings
In thick, scented mist.2
Warm wine drunk at leisure,
Spring spreads everywhere,
Flowering branches stray through screens,
The long, white day.
By the high windows of the double gallery
They count the cups they quaff,3
At midnight in the brazen bowls
Candles burn yellow.
Wearing a short-sleeved, low-cut robe
He’s teaching a parrot to talk,
In purple brocade and flaxen shoes
He treads on a roaring tiger.4
Burning cassia in golden braziers
He prepares for a banquet at dawn,
Up till midnight boiling clear cheese
From rare, white deer.5
In eternal galleries of flowering paulownia
He tries out a new horse,6
Great screens in the inner rooms
Adorned with living pictures,
He opens the gates and squanders the gold
From the emperor’s private purse,
He rolls up this Yellow River,
And pours it over himself.7
Even high heaven was once unlucky
And split and broke,8
But Qin Gong spends his whole life
Under the flowers.
He goes off with her simurgh comb,
Nor will he give it back,9
Sleeps drunkenly on the Persian rugs
In the moonlit hall.
“Ballad on the Boys by the Walls of Ancient Yeh” An Imitation of Wang Can’s Satire on Cao Cao
In the city of Ye
Dust rises at dusk.
Those drawing black balls
Behead civil servants. 1
Brambles for whips,
Tigers for horses,
Running in packs
Under Ye’s walls.
Swords to cut jade,
Sun-shooting bows,2
Presented to whom?
Why, to the Minister.
Propping his chariot-hubs
Boys from west of the Pass.
Sweep the roads with perfume!
The Minister comes home!3
Singing of Yang’s Purple Inkstone with a Green Pattern
Stone-masons of Duan-zhou, subtle as spirits,
Trod the sky,
hewed purple clouds with polished knives.
How true they trimmed the well of stone
That brims to its lips,
Darkly soaked with cold stains—
Blood of Chang-hong.1
Silken curtains warm in daytime,
Ink-flowers in spring,
A floating froth in airy bubbles
Fragrant with pine and musk.2
Ink dry or oily, thick or thin,
Its feet stand firm.3
Just a few inches of autumn sunshine
That dusk cannot touch.
Often the round brush whispers on
The stone, forever new.
Master Kong’s inkstone, broad and stubborn,4
Was no match for this.
Thoughts in Her Chamber
New cassia-crescent like a lady’s brow,1
The autumn gusts blowing down little emeralds.
Sound of the traveller’s wheels leaving our gate,
Jade simurgh-bells tinkling intermittently. 2
Wind-blown dew drops on the moonlit verandah,
The courtyard bleak and lonely in the dawn.
Who could endure such loneliness?
Lying awake, I listen to the crickets’ tears. 3
Dawn in Shih-cheng
The moon is setting over Great Dike,1
Up from the battlements fly the roosting crows.
A fine dew soaks the crimson spheres,2
Their cold scent clears the drunken fumes of night.
Lady and Herd-boy cross the River of Heaven,3
Misty willows cover the coigns of the walls.
A noble guest leaves her a torn-off sachet4—
She knits the emerald smudges of her brows.
Spring curtains of cicada-wing gauze,5
Half-seen,
Her bed awaits, vaguely patterned,
With golden flowers.
Catkins flying in front of the curtains,
Feathers of geese—
Images of her heart in spring,
What else?
Lament That the Days Are So Short
Flying lights, flying lights,1
I pledge you a cup of wine.
I do not know if the blue heavens are high,
The yellow earth is rich,
I only see cold moon, hot sun,
Both come to plague us.
Eat bears and you’ll grow fat,
Eat frogs and you’ll grow thin.2
Where is the Spirit Lady?
Where the Great Unity?3
East of the sky stands the Jo tree,4
Under it a dragon with a torch in its mouth.5
I’ll cut off the dragon’s feet,
And eat the dragon’s flesh.6
The morning will not come back again,
Night will not stay.
So old men will not die,
Nor young men weep.
Why should we swallow yellow gold,
Or eat white jade?7
Who is Ren Gong-zi
Riding a white donkey through the clouds?8
Liu Che lies in the Mao-ling tomb,
Just a pile of bones.9
Ying Zheng lies in his catalpa coffin—
What a waste of abalone.10
Second Year of Chang-ho
Coiled clouds above our fields,1
A soughing wind.
Ears of wheat like brushes,
Millet like corn.2
For every man in the Pass
A hundred jackets,
Officials east of the Pass
Never shout for taxes.
Strong, young oxen plough in spring
The rich, black earth.
Bullrushes grow in thick clusters
By veins of water.
Since they have courteously
Returned our land-tax,
We can spend a hundred cash
On strolling lute-players.
We roam in springs’ radiance,
White flowers on the hillsides,
Burn incense in the wild woods,
Call spirits down to the mats.
We worship the spirits to win long life
For the Emperor,
Till the thread of the Seven Stars snaps
And the Moon Goddess dies.3
Returning to Chang-gu in Spring
I started studying when I reached my teens,1
Regretting I had left my plans too late.
Before Zhang Jun earned his official carriage
This Yan-zi’s hair turned prematurely white.2
The net of Heaven, though truly wide and high,3
Trammelled this stubborn man in endless trouble.
My eyes had feasted upon sweet delights
My homeless heart found bitter as the smartweed.
Then came the fiery clouds of March and April,
Their peaks and crags whelming and toppling.
Who hung on high that bowl of crimson jade,
Flooding the eastern sky with reddest fire?
In that hot spring I raised my parasol,
Buds on the roadside elms still rabbit-eyes,
My brain on fire, my sickness on my face,
Gall filled my mouth, cramp twisted my guts.
There in the capital my heart was shattered,
Even in dreams I rarely saw my home.4
My brakes released outside the Eastern Gate,
Sky and earth stretched infinite before me.
Green trees were burgeoning atop Mount Li,5
A flowery wind invaded the Qin roads.
The palace towers, in dazzling disarray,6
Unfurled in painted scrolls on peaks and crags.
Tender, green leaves, rondures of scarlet blossom,
Weeping and smiling, strewn along my way.
Down to that plateau perfumed breezes wafted,7
Saddle and horse glittered in ornate splendour.
But I rode alone, in a hencoop of a cart,
Aware that I was clean out of the fashion.
Deep in my heart Substance held talk with Shadow.
Could I be happy journeying all alone?
Surely I could not lay aside my burden,
I’d tried to be a swan, but lost my luck.
Under the gloomy shades of Mount Tai-hua,8
Where ancient cypresses plant soldiers’ banners,
I rode past dragons’ hides strung out in lines,
And ever-fluttering wings of kingfisher-blue.9
Though faint and weary from my wayfaring,
The scenery still wrung a smile from me.
Flowering vines caught at my curving yoke,
Thin, silken mist shrouded the sunken trail.10
A fine, young man—a fine, young failure too—
I’m home to bring my aged mother shame.
Listening to a sutra, I pace beneath great trees,
Reading a book, I walk by a winding pool.
I realize I’m no tiger loosed from cage,
Rejoice to be a panther veiled in cloud.11
Stringed arrows bring the birds of Han to earth,
Fish-baskets catch the dace of the River Xiang.12
This narrow path leads to no broad highway,
Why must a man fret over petty things?
Chang-gu (A Poem Written on the Twenty-Seventh Day of the Fifth Month)
Paddy fields at Chang-gu, in the fifth month,
A shimmer of green covers the level water.
Distant hills rise towering, crag on crag,
Precarious greenery, fearful of falling.1
Dazzling and pure, no thoughts of autumn yet,
A cool wind from afar ruffles this beauty.
The bamboos’ fragrance fills this lonely place,
Each powdered node is streaked with emerald.
The long-haired grass lets fall its mournful tresses,
A bright dew weeps, shedding its secret tears.
Tall trees form a bright and winding tunnel,2
A scented t
rack where fading reds sway drunkenly.
Swarms of insects etch the ancient willows,
Cicadas cry from high sequestered spots.
Long sashes of yellow arrowroot trail the ground,3
Purple rushes criss-cross narrow shores.
Stones coined with moss lie strewn about in heaps,
Plump leaves are growing in glossy clusters.
Level and white are the wave-washed sands,
Where horses stand, printing dark characters.4
At evening, fishes dart around joyfully,
A lone, lean crane stands stock-still in the dusk.
Down in their damp, mole-crickets chirp away.
A muted spring wells up with startled splash.
Crooked and winding, Jade Purity Road,
Where the Divine Maiden dwells among orchid blossoms.5
Cotton-moss winds around the stones in the stream,
Crimson and purple, mountain fruits hang down.
Small cypresses with leaves like layers of fans,
Plump pines oozing essence of cinnabar.
A singing stream runs on melodiously,
Ripe wheat on the dike trails its glowing head.
Orioles trill songs of a girl from Min,6
A waterfall unfurls satin robes from Chu.
Windblown dew fills laughing eyes
That blossom or wither in crannies and clefts.
Tangled branches jut from stony heights,
Tiny throats chatter by an island spring,
The sun’s rays sweep aside the shadow of dusk
New-risen clouds open their ornate deeps.
Pure and still, these oppressive summer days,
Yet a west wind whispers of a cooling air.
Luminous, on high her jade-white face
As I burn cinnamon on the Heavenly Altar.
Her robes of mist are fluttering in the night,
She drowses by Her altar, pure of dreams.
The simurghs have aged, awaiting the Emperor’s carriage,
The pepper-walls of the ancient palace are ruined.7
Yet several of the bells still tinkle faintly,
Arousing this wandering courtier to desolate thoughts.
Dark creepers twine about the scarlet bolts,
In dragon-curtains lurk the mountain trolls.
Flowering tamarisk clings to emerald brocades,
These scented quilts served nobles long since dead.
No songs now stir the dust on worm-eaten beams,
Where dancers’ coloured robes hang like long clouds.