by Li He
This precious land is cut from fissured silk,
Our villagers prize truth and righteousness.
No sound of pestles is heard when a neighbour mourns,
No evil rites are used to drive off plagues.
The fish-skinned oldsters, virtuous and kind,
The horn-haired children, modest, quick to shame.8
The county justices have nothing to do,
No dunning tax collectors call on us.
In bamboo groves we repair our tattered books,9
From stony jetties drop in the hook and bait.
Winding rivers girdle us with water,
Banana leaves are slanting paper from Shu.
Light on the peaks, a dazzling silk collar,
The setting sun brushes away my cares.
Our springs are beakers of Governor Tao’s wine,10
Our moon, the brow of Xie’s singing-girl.11
Clang of a hidden bell far away
On high, a solitary bird wings home.
Rose-mist pinnacles, red and black peaks,
High cataracts roaring as they contend.
Pale moths floating in calm emerald,12
A veiled moon, distant, faint and sad.
Its cold light penetrates the river gorge,
Infinite my thoughts among these mountains.
The fisherman’s boy lowers his midnight nets,
Frost-white birds soar up on misty wings.
On the pool’s mirror, slippery spume of dragons,
And floating pearls exhaled by fishes at play.
Windy tong trees, lutes in jasper cases,
Fire-flies’ stars, envoys to Brocade City.13
Willows join their long green sashes,
Bamboos quiver, short flutes playing.
The base of the crag emerges from green moss,
Reed-shoots are peering from the cinnabar pond.
Ripples and eddies sport with sky’s reflection,
The hands of ancient junipers grasp the clouds.
The mournful moon is curtained with red roses,
Thorns of fragrant creeper catch the clouds.
The bearded wheat lies level for hundreds of leagues,
On the untilled acres stand a thousand shops.
This man from Cheng-ji, restless and fretful,14
Would like to emulate Master Wine-sack’s ways.15
Lament of the Brazen Camels
At the end of the third month, out of office and poor,
I went to the eastern suburbs in search of flowers.1
Who was it wrote a farewell song to spring?
The brazen camels lament on the banks of the Luo.
South of the bridge are many riders on horseback,2
The northern mountain is girdled with ancient graves.3
While men are quaffing cups of wine,
The camels sit and mourn ten million springs.
Useless to toil away in this life of ours,
It’s only a wind-blown candle in a bowl.4
Tired of seeing peach-trees smile again,
The brazen camels weep as night comes on.
I Journey from Chang-gu and Arrive at Luo-yang through the Rear Gate
In the ninth month, the great wilderness is white,
And azure peaks rear up their autumn portals.
In the bitter cold of the tenth month’s ending,
Snow and sleet confound both dawn and dusk.
The sky stays steely-grey throughout the day,
My heart feels like the clouds that clog the air.
Along the road, wind blows a thousand leagues,
The wild bamboos are scarred with snaky venom.1
From stony ravines, the sound of freezing waves,
A cock crows out in the cold of a clear dawn.
I keep pushing on till I reach my house in the east,
Turn loose my horse, then rejoin my old neighbours.
My eastern neighbour’s personal name is Liao,
In our district he carries on the line of Xin.2
The money on my staff is not for wine,3
I need it for a visit to this fellow.
At first I wanted to go south to Chu,
Now once again I am heading west to Qin.
As for the king called Xiang and Emperor Wu,4
Both of them wanted to stay young forever.
I have heard tell that to the Orchid Terrace,
Song Yu’s soul will never return again.
Among twin rows of characters in blue and light-yellow,
Torpid insects have eaten the autumn rue.
What of my future among the towers of Qin?
Will it be my fate to carry firewood there?5
On the First Day of the Seventh Month at Dawn I Enter the Tai-Hang Mountains
In just one night autumn invests the hills
Fragrant dew bathes dodder and royal-grass.1
New bridges cling to cloud-hung slopes,2
Seasonal insects cry in dewy groves.
By now I’m far from the south of Luo-yang,3
How can I lie snug in my Yue quilt?
The rock’s breath chills me to the bones,4
The aging sedge looks like short arrow-heads.
Autumn Cold: A Poem Sent to My Twelfth Elder Cousin, the Collator
Shutting the gates, I feel the autumn wind—
My loneliness is due to our long parting.
Beneath a white sky the great wilderness stretches,
A killing blast sweeps the wide heaven and earth
Shining dew weeps over withered orchids,
Cry of insects sounds out night and day.
In my cold room the candle-stump burns dim,
My red silk curtains tattered by the wind.
I open my books to the old scent of rue,
Sing resentfully now your handsome face has gone.
For a hundred days we have not seen each other,
Bright flowers fade in this bitter season.
Of all my brothers, who worries most about me?
I already have the letter you sent to me.
Clad in blue jacket, riding a white horse,1
You send your drafts up to the Eastern Gate-towers.
In my dream we are laughing together—
Then I wake to a half-moon over my bed.
Endless my thoughts, like a bracelet on my wrist,
My sorrows run wild like spreading arrowroot.
Mowing Grass and Setting Our Nets
In cloak of brocade,
And broidered suit,
How busily you drink and peck,
Feeding your fledglings!
East of the dike, ripe grain lies flattened
By wind and rain,
Don’t listen to the decoy bird
West of the dike!
Men of Qi have woven nets Limpid as air,1
Strung them out in the wild fields’
Level emerald.
Silken nets spread far and wide,
Without shape or shadow,
Run foul of them, your head will wear
A scarlet wound.
Who gathered this gay greenery
Of moxa leaves?2
You cannot guess at the cunning trap
Hidden within.
Music Rising to the Clouds
Flying fragrance, running reds—
It seems spring fills the sky.
Flowery dragons coil and writhe,
Up to the purple clouds.1
Some three thousand palace girls,
Living in golden rooms,
Fifty-string zithers sounding out
To the shores of the sea.2
The Heavenly River is shattered—
A road of silver sand.
The Ying girls at their loom
Cut misty, white silk,3
Then sew their dancing gowns.
On the first day of the eighth month
They dance before their lord.
Mo To Lou Tzu
&n
bsp; From Jade Pass to the Golden Man1
Is twenty-four thousand leagues.
Wind swirls sudden clouds of sand
Over the waters of Liao.2
A white sky, water like raw silk,
Our armour’s double thread broken.
“May no hardship mar your journey!”
A fading crescent over the Wall.
Northern mists rising in chill of dawn,
Nomad horses mincing on little hooves.
The travellers come to the sundering stream,
The river Long parts them, stretching east and west.3
Ballad of the Savage Tiger
No one attacks it with a long lance,
No one plies a strong cross-bow.
Suckling its grandsons, rearing its cubs,
It trains them into savagery.
Its reared head becomes a wall
Its waving tail becomes a banner.
Even Huang from the Eastern Sea,1
Dreaded to see it after dark,
A righteous tiger, met on the road,2
Was quite enough to upset Niu Ai.
What good is it for that short sword
To hang on the wall, growling like thunder?
When from the foot of Tai mountain
Comes the sound of a woman weeping,
Government regulations forbid
Any official to dare to listen.3
Ballad of the Rising Sun
The white sun sets below the Kun-lun range,1
Its rays so many silken threads unravelled.
It merely shines on the sunflower’s heart,2
It never lightens up a traveller’s sorrow.
The Yellow River curves and winds about,
The sun wheels straight across the sky.
I’ve heard the sun comes out of Sunny Valley,3
I’ve never seen the Ruo-tree, where it sets.4
No stopping you from smelting rocks,
But why melt men away?
If Yi could bend his bow and shoot an arrow?5
Then why could he not hit the sun-crow’s foot,
So that the crow would never fly again,
So that the fire would never move at all?6
Why must it glare at dawn, grow dim at dusk?
Bitter Bamboos: A Diao-xiao Ballad
A word or two about the days
When Xuan-yuan reigned.1
Ling Lun cut bamboos
Four-and-twenty of them.
Ling Lun gathered them
Upon the hill of Kun.
Xuan-yuan ordered him
To halve them, making twelve.
Thus Ling Lun regulated
Musical pitch,
And with this Xuan-yuan
Ordered the Primal Breaths.2
When the Yellow Emperor
Ascended into heaven,
Three-and-twenty pitch-pipes
Followed in his train.
Only a single pipe remained
For men to play,
Yet since they lacked virtue
This pipe was not for them,
So it was buried deep
Within the shrine of Shun.3
Lyric for the Duster Dance
Songs of Wu maidens rise to the heavens,
Across the sky unhurried clouds go drifting.
And yet one day the emerald moss must grow
Outside these gates where horse and carriage throng.
This goblet brimmed with Wu-cheng wine,1
Will spur you on to live a million years.
Better than Emperor Wu in his ornate tower,2
Gazing at dawn on a clear, cold sky
And sipping dew from flowers.
Suppose the sun stood always in the east,
In heavenly radiance never in decline?
By eating cinnabar you may become
A serpent riding a white mist,
A thousand-year-old turtle in a well of jade.3
Can’t you see yourself transformed to snake or turtle
For twenty centuries,
Dragging your life out, year after year,
On the grass-green dikes of Wu?
Eight trigrams on your back,4
Blazoned “Immortal.”
Your cunning scales,
Your stubborn armour,
Slimed with a fishy spittle!
Song: Sitting through the Night
Clatter and clatter of horses’ hooves—
But who will visit me?
My eyes watch the Northern Dipper stand
In the River of Heaven.
The west wind ripples my awning of gauze,
Kingfisher-green.
As leaden flowers bloom on my face,
I knit blue brows. 1
For you I rose and sang my song,
Long thoughts of love.
Outside the screens, in bitter frost,
All falls and flies.
The shining stars are glittering
On the eastern bounds.
Red mists of dawn come creeping forth
From the southeast shores.
Now Master Lu has ridden away
On his dappled horse.2
Song for Vertical Harp
Oh, where are you off to, sir, with your wine-jug?
Qu Ping drowned in the Hsiang,
Don’t be like him!1
Xu Yan plunged into the sea—
He was really a fool!2
There are mats of sedge upon your beds,
Fish in the bowls.
Your elder brother lives in North Village,
Your eastern neighbour has a young sister-in-law,
Millet and Indian rice grow thick
In the fields round the dike,
Flecked with light foam, the cloudy wine
Fills all your wine-jars.
Come eat the millet,
Drink the wine—
Oh, what are you trying to do!
Why are you rushing wild-haired into the water?
Your brother and the girl are weeping bitter tears.
Mount Wu Is High
A cluster of emeralds
Piercing high heaven!
Over the Great River’s swelling waves
Spirits trail their mist.
The King of Chu’s soul sought a dream
In a bitter wind.
In dawn wind and flying rain,
Grow coins of moss.
The Jade Princess has been gone
A thousand years,
Amid lilac and Sichuan bamboos
Old gibbons wail,
Her ancient shrine is close to the moon’s
Chill toad and cassia,
Pepper flowers shed scarlet petals
Among drenching clouds.
Under the Walls of Ping City
Hungry and cold, under Ping City’s walls,
Night after night we guard the shining moon.
Our farewell swords have lost their sheen,1
The Gobi wind cuts through our temple-hair.2
Endless desert merges with white void,
But see—far off—the red of Chinese banners,
In their black tents they’re blowing short flutes,
Mist and haze soaking their painted dragons.
At twilight, up there on the city walls,
We stare into the shadows of those walls,
The wind is blowing, stirring dead tumbleweed,
Our starving horses whinny within the walls.
“Just ask the builders of these walls
How many thousand leagues from the Pass we are?3
Rather than go home as bundled corpses
We’ll turn our lances on ourselves and die.”4
Pleasures South of the Yangzi
Green mist over the River,
Cold waves rising
Skywards, crag is heaped on crag,
Jagged red rocks.1
Wind on water, clouds on shore,
Ancient bamboos.
From the darken
ing beach a rush-sail seems
Just a strip of cloth.
We have a thousand gobies,
A hundred kegs of wine.
Sprawled flat among the wine, we see
Green southern hills.
Catches of Wu, ballads of Yue—
Our songs never stop.
Over the River a cold jade is pasted,
Round as a ball.2
Joys of the Rich
A young, owl-shouldered nobleman
Just turned twenty,1
Teeth like cowries,
Scarlet lips.
Rainbow-spirited,
Could drink like a rain-jar!
Galloping homewards at night
Past watchmen calling the hours.
He’d go straight to the Palace galleries,
Wander through the Pepper Apartments. 2
Motley furs and golden rings
Gleaming with ornate patterns.3
Laughing and flirting in jade halls
With girls from gold houses,
Playing, mimicking under the stage
The Han-dan singing-girls,4
Singing and telling stories,
The perfect ladies’ man.
All brocade sleeves and embroidered face
He came to the emperor
Who presented him with ten bushels of pearls
And a pair of white jade rings,
Bestowing on him a new, gold seal
Dangling from a purple sash.
Resplendent!
Horses flying past!
Rivers of people!
Nine Ministers, six Officers,
Eyes fixed on his shoes.
Did he want the sun and moon to spin?
He turned his palm around.
Or did he want a river?
He drew a line on the ground.
His towering, high-cornered hat
Seemed to cut the clouds,
As he hurried along at dawn,
Rattling his sword,
Cleaving the purple mist.
He would give mere lictors a thousand yards
Of embroidered silk,
And present a thousand pounds of gold
To household servants.
Around the twelve gates of Luo-yang
His mansions sprawled,
Through warm, spring air to the sapphire sky
The slow smoke crawled.
Golden door-rings threw back the sun’s
Dazzling red light.