A Lute of Jade | Page 9

a quietism is to be found in Chinese poetry ill appealing to the unrest of our day, and as dissimilar to our ideals of existence as the life of the planets is to that of the dark bodies?whirling aimlessly through space.
The Odes of Confucius
1765-585 B.C.
Collected by Confucius about 500 B.C.
Sadness
The sun is ever full and bright,?The pale moon waneth night by night.
Why should this be?
My heart that once was full of light?Is but a dying moon to-night.
But when I dream of thee apart,?I would the dawn might lift my heart,
O sun, to thee.
Trysting Time
I
A pretty girl at time o' gloaming?Hath whispered me to go and meet her
Without the city gate.?I love her, but she tarries coming.?Shall I return, or stay and greet her?
I burn, and wait.
II
Truly she charmeth all beholders,?'Tis she hath given me this jewel,
The jade of my delight;?But this red jewel-jade that smoulders,?To my desire doth add more fuel,
New charms to-night.
III
She has gathered with her lily fingers?A lily fair and rare to see.?Oh! sweeter still the fragrance lingers?From the warm hand that gave it me.
The Soldier
I climbed the barren mountain,?And my gaze swept far and wide?For the red-lit eaves of my father's home,?And I fancied that he sighed:
My son has gone for a soldier,?For a soldier night and day;?But my son is wise, and may yet return,?When the drums have died away.
I climbed the grass-clad mountain,?And my gaze swept far and wide?For the rosy lights of a little room,?Where I thought my mother sighed:
My boy has gone for a soldier,?He sleeps not day and night;?But my boy is wise, and may yet return,?Though the dead lie far from sight.
I climbed the topmost summit,?And my gaze swept far and wide?For the garden roof where my brother stood,?And I fancied that he sighed:
My brother serves as a soldier?With his comrades night and day;?But my brother is wise, and may yet return,?Though the dead lie far away.
Ch`u Yuan
Fourth Century, B.C.
A loyal minister to the feudal Prince of Ch`u, towards the close of the Chou dynasty. His master having, through disregard of his counsel, been captured by the Ch`in State, Ch`u Yuan sank into disfavour with his sons, and retired to the hills, where he wrote his famous `Li Sao', of which the following is one of the songs. He eventually drowned himself in the river Mi-Lo, and in spite of the search made for his body, it was never found. The Dragon-boat Festival, held on the fifth day of the fifth moon, was founded in his honour.
The Land of Exile
Methinks there's a genius?Roams in the mountains,?Girdled with ivy?And robed in wisteria,?Lips ever smiling,?Of noble demeanour,?Driving the yellow pard,?Tiger-attended,?Couched in a chariot?With banners of cassia,?Cloaked with the orchid,?And crowned with azaleas;?Culling the perfume?Of sweet flowers, he leaves?In the heart a dream-blossom,?Memory haunting.?But dark is the forest?Where now is my dwelling,?Never the light of day?Reaches its shadow.?Thither a perilous?Pathway meanders.?Lonely I stand?On the lonelier hill-top,?Cloudland beneath me?And cloudland around me.?Softly the wind bloweth,?Softly the rain falls,?Joy like a mist blots?The thoughts of my home out;?There none would honour me,?Fallen from honours.?I gather the larkspur?Over the hillside,?Blown mid the chaos?Of boulder and bellbine;?Hating the tyrant?Who made me an outcast,?Who of his leisure?Now spares me no moment:?Drinking the mountain spring,?Shading at noon-day?Under the cypress?My limbs from the sun glare.?What though he summon me?Back to his palace,?I cannot fall?To the level of princes.?Now rolls the thunder deep,?Down the cloud valley,?And the gibbons around me?Howl in the long night.?The gale through the moaning trees?Fitfully rushes.?Lonely and sleepless?I think of my thankless?Master, and vainly would?Cradle my sorrow.
Wang Seng-ju
Sixth Century, A.D.
Tears
High o'er the hill the moon barque steers.
The lantern lights depart.?Dead springs are stirring in my heart;
And there are tears. . . .?But that which makes my grief more deep?Is that you know not when I weep.
Ch`en Tzu Ang
A.D. 656-698
Famous for writing that kind of impromptu descriptive verse which the Chinese call "Ying". In temperament he was less Chinese than most of his contemporaries. His passionate disposition finally brought him into trouble with the magistrate of his district, who had him cast into prison, where he died at the age of forty-two.
Whatever his outward demeanour may have been, his poetry gives us no indication of it, being full of delicate mysticism,?almost impossible to reproduce in the English language.?For this reason I have chosen one of his simpler poems as a specimen.
The Last Revel
From silver lamps a thin blue smoke is streaming,?And golden vases 'mid the feast are gleaming;
Now sound the lutes in unison,?Within the gates our lives are one.?We'll think not of the parting ways
As long as dawn delays.
When in tall trees the dying moonbeams quiver:?When floods of fire efface the Silver River,
Then comes the hour when I must seek?Lo-Yang beyond the furthest peak.?But the warm twilight round us twain
Will never rise again.
Sung Chih-Wen
Died A.D. 710
The son of a