Three Tang Dynasty Poets Read online

  Before you come, write me a letter:

  To welcome you, don’t talk of distance,

  I’ll go as far as the Long Wind Sands!

  2

  I remember, in my maiden days

  I did not know the world and its ways;

  Until I wed a man of Ch’ang-kan:

  Now, on the sands, I wait for the winds …

  And when in June the south winds are fair,

  I think: Pa-ling, it’s soon you’ll be there;

  September now, and west winds risen,

  I wish you’ll leave the Yangtze Haven;

  But, go or come, it’s ever sorrow

  For when we meet, you part tomorrow:

  You’ll make Hsiang-tan in how many days?

  I dreamt I crossed the winds and the waves

  Only last night, when the wind went mad

  And tore down trees on the waterside

  And waters raced where the dark wind ran

  (Oh, where was then my travelling man?)

  That we both rode dappled cloudy steeds

  Eastward to bliss in Isles of Orchids:

  A drake and duck among the green reeds,

  Just as you’ve seen on a painted screen …

  Pity me now, when I was fifteen

  My face was pink as a peach’s skin:

  Why did I wed a travelling man?

  Waters my grief … my grief in the wind!

  The Ballad of Yü-Chang

  A Tartar wind blows on Tai horses

  Thronging northward through the Lu-yang Gap:

  Wu cavalry like snowflakes seaward

  Riding westward know of no return,

  Where as they ford the Shang-liao shallows

  A yellow cloud stares faceless on them;

  An old mother parting from her son

  Calls on Heaven in the wild grasses,

  The white horses round flags and banners,

  Sadly she keens and clasps him to her:

  ‘ “Poor white poplar in the autumn moon,

  Soon it was felled on the Yü-chang Hills” –

  You were ever a peaceful scholar,

  You were not trained to kill and capture!’

  ‘How can you weep for death in battle,

  To free our Prince from stubborn bandits?

  Given pure will, stones swallow feathers,

  How can you speak of fearing dangers?

  ‘Our towered ships look like flying whales

  Where the squalls race on Fallen Star Lake:

  This song you sing – if you sing loudly,

  Three armies’ hair will streak, too, with grey!’

  Hard is the Journey

  Gold vessels of fine wines,

  thousands a gallon,

  Jade dishes of rare meats,

  costing more thousands,

  I lay my chopsticks down,

  no more can banquet,

  And draw my sword and stare

  wildly about me:

  Ice bars my way to cross

  the Yellow River,

  Snows from dark skies to climb

  the T’ai-hang Mountains!

  At peace I drop a hook

  into a brooklet,

  At once I’m in a boat

  but sailing sunward …

  (Hard is the Journey,

  Hard is the Journey,

  So many turnings,

  And now where am I?)

  So when a breeze breaks waves,

  bringing fair weather,

  I set a cloud for sails,

  cross the blue oceans!

  Old Poem

  Did Chuang Chou dream

  he was the butterfly,

  Or the butterfly

  that it was Chuang Chou?

  In one body’s

  metamorphoses,

  All is present,

  infinite virtue!

  You surely know

  Fairyland’s oceans

  Were made again

  a limpid brooklet,

  Down at Green Gate

  the melon gardener

  Once used to be

  Marquis of Tung-ling?

  Wealth and honour

  were always like this:

  You strive and strive,

  but what do you seek?

  TU FU (DU FU)

  * * *

  Lament by the Riverside

  The old man from Shao-ling,

  weeping inwardly,

  Slips out by stealth in spring

  and walks by Serpentine,

  And on its riverside

  sees the locked Palaces,

  Young willows and new reeds

  all green for nobody;

  Where Rainbow Banners once

  went through South Gardens,

  Gardens and all therein

  with merry faces:

  First Lady of the Land,

  Chao-yang’s chatelaine,

  Sits always by her Lord

  at board or carriage,

  Carriage before which Maids

  with bows and arrows

  Are mounted on white steeds

  with golden bridles;

  They look up in the air

  and loose together,

  What laughter when a pair

  of wings drop downward,

  What bright eyes and white teeth,

  but now where is she?

  The ghosts of those by blood

  defiled are homeless!

  Where limpid River Wei’s

  waters flow Eastward,

  One goes, the other stays

  and has no tidings:

  Though Pity, all our hours,

  weeping remembers,

  These waters and these flowers

  remain as ever;

  But now brown dusk and horse-

  men fill the City,

  To gain the City’s South

  I shall turn Northward!

  From The Journey North: the Homecoming

  Slowly, slowly we tramped country tracks,

  With cottage smoke rarely on their winds:

  Of those we met, many suffered wounds

  Still oozing blood, and they moaned aloud!

  I turned my head back to Feng-hsiang’s camp,

  Flags still flying in the fading light;

  Climbing onward in the cold hills’ folds,

  Found here and there where cavalry once drank;

  Till, far below, plains of Pin-chou sank,

  Ching’s swift torrent tearing them in two;

  And ‘Before us the wild tigers stood’,

  Had rent these rocks every time they roared:

  Autumn daisies had begun to nod

  Among crushed stones waggons once had passed;

  To the great sky then my spirit soared,

  That secret things still could give me joy!

  Mountain berries, tiny, trifling gems

  Growing tangled among scattered nuts,

  Were some scarlet, sands of cinnabar,

  And others black, as if lacquer-splashed:

  By rain and dew all of them were washed

  And, sweet or sour, equally were fruits;

  They brought to mind Peach-tree River’s springs,

  And more I sighed for a life misspent!

  Then I, downhill, spied Fu-chou far off

  And rifts and rocks quickly disappeared

  As I ran down to a river’s edge,

  My poor servant coming far behind;

  There we heard owls hoot from mulberry

  Saw fieldmice sit upright by their holes;

  At deep of night crossed a battlefield,

  The chill moonlight shining on white bones

  Guarding the Pass once a million men,

  But how many ever left this Pass?

  True to orders half the men in Ch’in

  Here had perished and were alien ghosts!

  I had fallen, too, in Tartar dust

  But can return with my hair like flour,

 
; A year but past, to my simple home

  And my own wife, in a hundred rags;

  Who sees me, cried like the wind through trees

  Weeps like the well sobbing underground

  And then my son, pride of all my days,

  With his face, too, whiter than the snows

  Sees his father, turns his back to weep –

  His sooty feet without socks or shoes;

  Next by my couch two small daughters stand

  In patched dresses scarcely to their knees

  And the seawaves do not even meet

  Where old bits of broidery are sewn;

  Whilst the Serpent and the Purple Bird

  On the short skirts both are upside-down

  ‘Though your father is not yet himself,

  Suffers sickness and must rest some days,

  How could his script not contain some stuffs

  To give you all, keep you from the cold?

  ‘You’ll find there, too, powder, eyebrow black

  Wrapped in the quilts, rather neatly packed.’

  My wife’s thin face once again is fair,

  Then the mad girls try to dress their hair:

  Aping mother in her every act,

  Morning make-up quickly smears their hands

  Till in no time they have spread the rouge,

  Fiercely painted great, enormous brows!

  I am alive, with my children, home!

  Seem to forget all that hunger, thirst:

  These quick questions, as they tug my beard,

  Who’d have the heart now to stop and scold?

  Turning my mind to the Rebel Camp,

  It’s sweet to have all this nonsense, noise …

  The Visitor

  North and South of our hut

  spread the Spring waters,

  And only flocks of gulls

  daily visit us;

  For guests our path is yet

  unswept of petals,

  To you our wattle gate

  the first time opens:

  Dishes so far from town

  lack subtle flavours,

  And wine is but the rough

  a poor home offers;

  If you agree, I’ll call

  my ancient neighbour

  Across the fence, to come

  help us finish it!

  Nine Short Songs: Wandering Breezes: 1

  The withies near my door

  are slender, supple

  And like the waists of maids

  of fifteen summers:

  Who said, when morning came,

  ‘Nothing to mention’?

  A mad wind has been here

  and broke the longest!

  Nine Short Songs: Wandering Breezes: 8

  The catkins line the lanes,

  making white carpets,

  And leaves on lotus streams

  spread like green money:

  Pheasants root bamboo shoots,

  nobody looking,

  While ducklings on the sands

  sleep by their mothers.

  The Ballad of the Ancient Cypress

  In front of K’ung-ming Shrine

  stands an old cypress,

  With branches like green bronze

  and roots like granite;

  Its hoary bark, far round,

  glistens with raindrops,

  And blueblack hues, high up,

  blend in with Heaven’s:

  Long ago Statesman, King

  kept Time’s appointment,

  But still this standing tree

  has men’s devotion;

  United with the mists

  of ghostly gorges,

  Through which the moon brings cold

  from snowy mountains.

  (I recall near my hut

  on Brocade River

  Another Shrine is shared

  by King and Statesman

  On civil, ancient plains

  with stately cypress:

  The paint there now is dim,

  windows shutterless …)

  Wide, wide though writhing roots

  maintain its station,

  Far, far in lonely heights,

  many’s the tempest

  When its hold is the strength

  of Divine Wisdom

  And straightness by the work

  of the Creator …

  Yet if a crumbling Hall

  needed a rooftree,

  Yoked herds would, turning heads,

  balk at this mountain:

  By art still unexposed

  all have admired it;

  But axe though not refused,

  who could transport it?

  How can its bitter core

  deny ants lodging,

  All the while scented boughs

  give Phoenix housing?

  Oh, ambitious unknowns,

  sigh no more sadly:

  Using timber as big

  was never easy!

  From a Height

  The winds cut, clouds are high,

  apes wail their sorrows,

  The ait is fresh, sand white,

  birds fly in circles;

  On all sides fallen leaves

  go rustling, rustling,

  While ceaseless river waves

  come rippling, rippling:

  Autumn’s each faded mile

  seems like my journey

  To mount, alone and ill,

  to this balcony;

  Life’s failures and regrets

  frosting my temples,

  And wretched that I’ve had

  to give up drinking.

  Ballad on Seeing a Pupil of the Lady Kung-Sun Dance the Sword Mime

  On the 19th day of the Tenth Month of Year II of Ta-li (15 November 767), I saw the Lady Li, Twelfth, of Lin-ying dance the Mime of the Sword at the Residence of Lieutenant-Governor Yüan Ch’i of K’uei Chou Prefecture; and both the subtlety of her interpretation and her virtuosity on points so impressed me that I asked of her, who had been her Teacher? She replied: ‘I was a Pupil of the great Lady Kung-sun!’

  In Year V of K’ai-yüan (A.D. 717), when I was no more than a tiny boy, I remember being taken in Yü-yen City to see Kung-sun dance both this Mime and ‘The Astrakhan Hat’.

  For her combination of flowing rhythms with vigorous attack, Kung-sun had stood alone even in an outstanding epoch. No member at all of the corps de ballet, of any rank whatever, either of the Sweet Spring-time Garden or of the Pear Garden Schools, could interpret such dances as she could; throughout the reign of His Late Majesty, Saintly in Peace and Godlike in War! But where now is that jadelike face, where are those brocade costumes? And I whiteheaded! And her Pupil here, too, no longer young!

  Having learned of this Lady’s background, I came to realize that she had, in fact, been reproducing faithfully all the movements, all the little gestures, of her Teacher; and I was so stirred by that memory, that I decided to make a Ballad of the Mime of the Sword.

  There was a time when the great calligrapher, Chang Hsü of Wu, famous for his wild running hand, had several opportunities of watching the Lady Kung-sun dance this Sword Mime (as it is danced in Turkestan); and he discovered, to his immense delight, that doing so had resulted in marked improvement in his own calligraphic art! From that, know the Lady Kung-sun!

  A Great Dancer there was,

  the Lady Kung-sun,

  And her ‘Mime of the Sword’

  made the World marvel!

  Those, many as the hills,

  who had watched breathless

  Thought sky and earth themselves

  moved to her rhythms:

  As she flashed, the Nine Suns

  fell to the Archer;

  She flew, was a Sky God

  on saddled dragon;

  She came on, the pent storm

  before it thunders;

  And she ceased, the cold light

  off frozen rivers!

  Her red lips and pearl sleeves

&nb
sp; are long since resting,

  But a dancer revives

  of late their fragrance:

  The Lady of Lin-ying

  in White King city

  Did the piece with such grace

  and lively spirit

  That I asked! Her reply

  gave the good reason

  And we thought of those times

  with deepening sadness:

  There had waited at Court

  eight thousand Ladies

  (With Kung-sun, from the first,

  chief at the Sword Dance);

  And fifty years had passed

  (a palm turned downward)

  While the winds, bringing dust,

  darkened the Palace

  And they scattered like mist

  those in Pear Garden,

  On whose visages still

  its sun shines bleakly!

  But now trees had clasped hands

  at Golden Granary

  And grass played its sad tunes

  on Ch’ü-t’ang’s Ramparts,

  For the swift pipes had ceased

  playing to tortoiseshell;

  The moon rose in the East,

  joy brought great sorrow:

  An old man knows no more

  where he is going;

  On these wild hills, footsore,

  he will not hurry!

  Night Thoughts Afloat

  By bent grasses

  in a gentle wind

  Under straight mast