The Collected Poems of Li He
Page 18
But whelmed in darkness I bite my tongue,
Shed tears of blood and dare not say a word.
Now I am setting off down the eastern road,
With libations of wine I say farewell to Qin,
No brave men now in the six provinces,11
So who will wipe the dust from their long swords?
Yang and Wu-cheng are huddled deep in earth,12
And racehorses are yoked to carts of salt.
Since both of you are gallant gentlemen,
When it comes to Truth, you can tell black from white,
After tonight, we shall laugh together no more,
Bamboos are sprouting back in my garden at home.
At dawn a wind starts blowing from the west,
A glimmering moon is hanging in the east,
A man who finds the times are out of joint
Has written this poem he now presents to you.
Since partings always soak my breast with tears
I’ve brought my Yue handkerchief along.13
My Southern Garden
I’m wearing straight collar, orchid belt,
And a bent-cornered hat,1
Pallia is withering,
Orchids flower in spring.
Southern hills rear up sharply2—
Blue jade fused,
A sudden shower dies away,
Cool clouds wing past.
Apricots ripen in fragrant warmth,
Pear leaves grow old,
Grasses, twigs, and a bamboo fence
Lock in the pond.
Growing old in Cheng Gong’s village
I open a flagon of wine,3
Sit drinking to strains of Chu music,
Humming “Summoning the Soul.”4
1
Song: Imitating the Singing of Dragons
Stone grating on a copper bowl,
The song is faint and forced.
Blood spattered from blue eagles!
Lungs ripped from a white phoenix!1
Cassia seeds fall as clouds
Sway their carriage-awnings.2
Dead trees and crumbling sand,
A baleful valley-isle,
There the Western Mother, ageless now,
Once grew immortal.3
Grottoes washed clear of dragon’s pure spittle,
Gold claws buried in water-lapped coves.
Green shrouds the hillside steps
Mourning in moss,
The River Ladies, drying their tears,
Snapped off these giant bamboos.4
The Lotus Dragons left this land
A thousand years ago,5
Smell of fish lingers after rain—
And that of iron.6
2
Song: A Modest Maiden in the Spring Sunshine
Young butterflies in love with fragrance
Cling to new petals,
Branch after branch is weeping dew,
Shedding heaven-born tears.
Powdered windows choked with perfume,
Tumbling clouds of dawn.7
Hills of brocade, strewn with petals,8
Hide her spring dreams.
Peacocks shaking their golden tails
Embrace the screen,
Her oriole’s silver tongue is calling
Her serving-maids.
Cold dragons in an icy cave9—
Ewers of water,
This white simurgh, rising, drives away
The mists of sleep.
3
Joys of Youth
Scented flowers, falling petals,
Earth like brocade,
A youth of twenty roaming
In the Land of Drunkenness.10
Red ribbons never stirring
On his proud, white horse,
Weeping willows golden silk
Brush the perfumed water.
The girl from Wu unsmiling,
Flowers folded still,11
Green tresses tower and topple,
Orchid clouds arise.
Master Lu, drunk and reeling,12
Tugs her gauze sleeve.
Pulls out a jewelled hairpin,
A kingfisher of gold.
Six Satires
1
Spring’s rampant in the world!
Its fragrance wafts through sunlit curtains.
Darting sunbeams redden lonely flowers,
Enter her grottoed room to boast their beauty.
Pattern of golden snakes on her dancing-rug,
Zither and flute set out on ornate stands.
Her eyes are drunken with spring dusk,
Her tears yellow from her powder.
A prince arrives, gets off his horse,
On a winding pool, mandarin-ducks start singing.
How can he guess the carriage of her heart
Roaming the whole earth in a single night?1
2
A bitter wind whistles up boreal cold,
Trees of Qin are snapped by bolting sand.
Dancing shadows reel through an empty sky,
Sharp beat of painted drums throbs in my ears.
No autumn letter comes to me from Shu,2
Only Black Waters’ waves sobbing at dawn.3
A whirlwind will bear off my graceful ghost,
The moon of home hang over my lost grave.
3
Fog of dust from barbarian horses,
Forested halberds of frontier troops.
Heaven taught the nomad horseman how to fight,
At dawn the clouds are lowering blood-red.
A lady-general leads our Chinese soldiers,
A dainty kerchief tucked into her quiver.
She’s not ashamed of her heavy, gold seal,
Mincing along with bow-case at her waist.
Simple old men, just honest villagers,
Tested the teeth of arrow-barbs last night,
But she sent her courier to cry victory—
Must powder and mascara blind us all!4
4
When he hunts with crossbow at Green Gate,
His horses throng the empty suburbs.5
When did he get those presents from the palace?
Decked out with jade he swaggers in the saddle.
Off he goes, his hounds heading for home,
Back he comes to a banquet of boiled lamb.
A sack of gold couldn’t buy such dishes,
He turns his nose up even at badgers’ paws.
Dare we ask where this fellow springs from?
His father wears a sword hung at his belt.
Yet in a white-thatched cottage on West Hill
A wise man lives in lonely poverty.
5
Dawn chrysanthemums wet with cold dew,
Seem sad as the wind from her round fan.6
Chill of autumn creeps through the Han palace,
Ban-zi wept for her fading beauty.
I would never refuse to ride in the royal sedan-chair,7
Nor think of entering an empty palace.
The pearl belt at her waist is broken now,
Ash butterflies flutter by gloomy pines.8
6
Pretty girls on a terrace where butterflies flit,
A willow-swept road where harmonicas play.9
Ten suns are hanging in the entrance court,10
Through ninety days of fall no flowers fade.
Sound of singing borne afar on the breeze,
Cup-like ponds where little white fishes play.11
Feasting by the pool, they sup on fragrant meats,
Water-chestnut gleams in green fish-baskets.
Pear-blossom covers luxuriant grass,
Long whistles sound through vernal dark,12
They only grieve that fragrant blossoms fall,
Not realizing their whole world must decay.
Brooding on the past has fettered my spirit,
Mount South’s unchanging peaks have made me sad.13
Song: Never Sor
row
Below the Pool of Dragons grasses grow,1
Up on the city battlements crows are cawing.
Who is it dwells within the city walls,
By pomegranates planted in their corner?
With emerald silk her horses five are bound,
With yellow gold her oxen two are haltered.
White fishes harnessed to her lotus boats2
Carry her full ten leagues in a single night.
Then she returns, unknown to everyone,
Unheeded climbs her aloes-scented tower.3
She sings to a jewelled lute on her silk-hung couch,4
A sliver of moon wanes on the curtain-hooks.5
Today the hibiscus must cast down its petals,
Next dawn, the plane-trees feel the autumn come.
It seems her life is one of thwarted love.
Why ever was she known as “Never Sorrow”?
Pleasure Comes at Night
Curtains lined with red sendal,
Gold-fringed tassels,
Ornate nine-branched candelabra,
Hung with carp.1
This lovely girl, a brilliant moon,
Opens her brazen-ringed door,
Pours out wine in spring freshets
From a gibbon jar.2
Her price is high: ten incense-sticks
In a costly casket,
Ingots of “red-melon” gold
And “bran-cake” flakes,
A green jade duck in wrappings
Of five-coloured silk—
A smile from this accomplished beauty3
Costs a small fortune.
The Milky Way wheels past southern eaves,
Shadows fade from blinds,
In kolanut woods, crows are crying,
Nestling their young.
On sword-pommel, whip-handle,
Green stones and pearls,
His white steed blows out foam,
Frost stiffens its mane.4
She speeds her guest to Cheng-ming lodge,5
Water-dock dawn,
Then back to her tall mansion,
A bright, lonely moon.
Another guest dismounting
As the first one leaves,
Once more she brushes on green brows,
Combs her elegant black coiffure.
Deriding the Snow
Yesterday it left the Cong-ling ranges,1
Today it’s fluttering down on our orchid isles.2
Delighted to have come a thousand miles,
It’s laughing wildly, promising the spring.
On the Dragon Sands it drenches our Han banners,
Phoenix-wing fans welcome its Chinese white.3
“My Liao-dong crane left me so long ago,
By now his feather-robe must have grown sere.”4
Ballad: Spring Longings
Deep in shadows, this fragrant path
Is a flower-hung cave,
Tangled willows wreathed in mist,
Fragrant sashes heavy.
The moon-toad rolls its jade along,
Hangs out a bright bow.
A girl is striking fairies and phoenix
With a golden plectrum.1
Clouds tumbling over her jewelled pillow2
She seeks a spring dream,
In caskets cold with inlaid sapphires,
The dragon-brain grows chill.3
A-hou ties her brocade girdle4
And looks for Zhou Yu,5
She has to rely on the east wind
To waft her to him.
Ballad of the White Tiger
The fire-bird’s sun sank into shadow,1
Surging clouds dislimned.
The King of Qin glared like a tiger
On all the people.
He burnt the books, wiped out the states,
Not wasting a day,2
Forging swords, he bawled to his generals,
Rings on his belt.3
Libations poured on a jade altar—
Thoughts soared to heaven,
One generation, two generations—
Surely ten thousand years!
Burning cinnabar could not bring him
The immortal drug,
So he sent a fleet to scour the ocean,
Searching for fairies.4
Leviathans whipped sea-waves to foam
With flailing flukes,
Half our peasants vanished, turned to
Soldiers’ ghosts.
Fierce and cruel as savage fire
He flamed to the heavens,
Never a man who could unlock
The Sky River’s waves.5
Some who suffered would not suffer
Such suffering,6
Righteous men vowed to each other
To help their fellows.
Jian-li sat and strummed his lute
While Jing Ke sang.
Jing Qing held his wine,
Prince Dan of Yan spoke out.7
Sword like frost! Gall like iron!
Out of the walls of Yan he went,
Gazed at the moon of Qin,
Heaven had given Qin its seal,
Its sway was not yet over,
So the dragon robes were drenched
With Jing Qing’s blood.
When scarlet banners were planted in earth,
The white tiger died.
Then we knew the true Son of Heaven—
The king of Han!8
Someone I Love
Last year, by the wayside we sang
A song of parting.
Today you have sent me a letter
From far-off Shu.1
Outside my screens, the flowers are opening
In the April wind.2
In front of the terrace, a thousand tears
Bathe the bamboos.3
My heart and the lute’s are breaking tonight,
Yet will mend again.
My thoughts are with you, astride a white horse,
Carved bow at your side.
No place on earth where the winds of spring
Are not blowing now.
You were not willing to make your heart
As firm as stone.
The beauty of my face will fade
Like the pink of petals.
High in its sapphire, as night wears on,
The Long River glides.4
Across that River there is no bridge,
Lonely white waves.
Sadly, before the west wind stirs,
She plies her Dragon-shuttle.5
Year after year, she spins her plain silk
Knitting her brows. 6
Mountains and rivers stretch into the distance,
Endless, unbroken.
My tear-filled eyes gaze at the taper,
Flaring, then dying.
Since I hid myself in my lonely mansion,
Windows firmly barred,
How many times has the Cassia Flower7
Waxed and then waned?
Crow after crow, as dawn draws near,
Cries in the grove,
A wind blows from the banks of the pool,
Tinkling musical-jades,8
Bleak and lonely breaks the white day
Ending my dreams.
South of the bridge, I ask the Immortal
To tell me our fortunes.9
Ridiculing a Young Man
Saddles of his well-fed greys
Gleaming with gold,
Silken jacket really reeking
Of dragon-brain,
Lovely girls all over him,
Jade goblets flying—
“He’s a real swell, isn’t he!”
The poor exclaim.
In a tall tower that he’s built
By green bamboo-grass,
He hauls red fish from a deep pool
On silken lines.
Sometimes he sprawls—
half drunk of course—
Among his flowers,
Or brings the
birds down on the wing
With golden bolts.1
“I’ve never been any man’s guest!” he brags,
“In my born days.2
Three hundred gorgeous girls I’ve got,
Or maybe more.”
How can he know that among the farmers
Tilling our fields,
No girls are left to weave the cloth
For dunning tax-collectors!
Piling up gold, heaping up jade,
He boasts his noble blood,
Bowing to strangers as he goes,
Puffed up with pride.
He hasn’t read more than half a line,
Since he was born.
But bought high office for himself
With gleaming gold.
How can a young man hope to stay
Forever young,
When even ocean waves must change
To mulberry fields?
Quick as an arrow, fortune turns
To misery,
Will the Creator shower his favours
Only on you?
Don’t think the sunny days of spring
Will last till late—
For white hair and a haggard face
Are lying in wait!3
A Private Road in Eastern Kao-ping County
Fragrant and thick the leaves of the scarlet-seed,1
Trees and flowers dripping with cold rain.
This evening—autumn on the mountains—
Forgotten forever they blossom in lonely places.
Long, stony path overgrown with rank grass,
Bitter fruit of the wild pear dangles down.
Surely long ago a hermit sought this spot
And asked you to construct this private road.
Ballad of the Immortals
Where sapphire peaks rise from the sea
Magic books are stored.1
The Creating Power chose this place
As a dwelling for Immortals.
On clear, bright days their laughter echoes
Round the empty sky,
As they strive to ride enormous waves,
On the backs of whales.
With words of welcome on spring silk
To greet the Western Mother,
They will feast together in the Red Tower’s
Deepest recess.
Wings of a crane, beating the wind,
Too slow to cross the sea,
Far better despatch a messenger
Riding a blue dragon.
Still doubtful whether the Western Mother
Will accept the invitation,
They send a mist-haired beauty
Off with the message.
Song: Dragons at Midnight