A Lute of Jade | Page 9

understand humanity at all.
It is, however, not by this method that we can begin to trace the
difference between the poets of East and West, but in the two aspects of
life which no amount of comparison can reconcile.
To the Chinese such commonplace things as marriage, friendship, and
home have an infinitely deeper meaning than can be attached to them
by civilisation which practically lives abroad, in the hotels and
restaurants and open houses of others, where there is no sanctity of the
life within, no shrine set apart for the hidden family re-union,
and the
cult of the ancestral spirit. To the Western world, life, save for the
conventional hour or so set aside on the seventh day, is a thing profane.
In the far East the head of every family is a high-priest in the calling of
daily life. It is for this reason that 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