MENG HAO-JAN
Meng Hao-jan (689-740 CE) was a provincial artist who visited the capital but never was successful in obtaining those government posts that sustained many literati. He was one of the first poets to rebel against an ornate, courtly style that had dominated Chinese poetry since shortly after Hsieh Ling-yun. His spareness helped revolutionize Chinese poetry and permanently restored the simplicity of T'ao Chi'en as a dominant style in Chinese poetry. With Meng, Buddhist themes are common.
Passing an Old Friend's
An old friend fixing chicken and rice
asks me into his country home.
Shadowy trees surround the village,
peaks run blue to far horizons.
Beyond our meal stretch vegetable fields
as we chat, over wine, of mulberry, hemp.
Next year I'll wait till the Double Ninth,*
then come to watch chrysanthemums bloom.
Translated by
Matthew Flannery
* Double Ninth is a holiday, the ninth day of the ninth month.
Waiting for Mr. Ting at
The sun burns out past western peaks:
His Mountain Pavilion, Yeh-shih
valleys darken one by one.
Cold night is born of pines and moonlight
wind and stream are full of crystal sound;
weary woodsmen turn toward home
birds crouch in foggy nests.
Throughout the passing night, I wait.
A lonely lute attends his vine-hung path.
Translated by
Matthew Flannery
Evening. Anchoring at Hsuan-yang
Lofting sail a thousand miles
to See Mount Lu*
I could not find a famous mountain.
I moor my boat outside Hsuan-yang
to gaze at last at Hsiang-lu peak.
Once I read the master monk.
He walked outside this world of dust.
Now his Tung-lin hut lies near;
through evening sun I hear a bell.
Translated by
Matthew Flannery
* Hsuan-yang lies on the Yang-tze in Chiang-hsi province. Hsiang-lu ("Incense Burner") peak is a subsidiary peak of Mount Lu, so called because of its shape. "Master monk" refers to Yuan Kung (Hui Yuan), who lived in this area around 380. Yuan Kung founded a small monastery (szu) at his home (Tung-lin Szu). The monastery bell sustains his thought through time.
LI PO
Li Po (701-762 CE), also known as Li Bai, was translated by Ezra Pound under the Japanese pronunciation of his name as Rihaku. He is widely regarded as China's greatest poet, an honor he shares with Tu Fu. Li's romantic life and spontaneous poetry earned him the title of "the spirit of poetry," while Tu Fu's more down-to-earth style gained him recognition as the greatest "human poet."
On the Heng-Chiang Ferry Crossing
The Sea Spirit must have passed through
leaving this evil wind;
rough waves batter Heaven's Gate mountain,
and the stone wall opens.Eighth month tidal bore on Je River,
that's what it reminds me of--
mountainous waves, in serried ranges,
roll in spewing snow.
Translated by
David Lunde
Killing Time with Myself
Face to face with my wine jar,
I did not notice the fall of night
or that fallen flowers
overflowed my clothes.Drunk, I arose and walked
by the stream filled with moonlight--
all the birds had gone home
and men also were few.
Translated by
David Lunde
Summer Day in the Mountains
Lazy today. I wave my white feather fan.
Then I strip naked in the green forest,
untie my hatband and hang it on a stone wall.
Pine wind sprinkles my bare head.
Translated by
Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, and Chou Ping
Brooding in the Still Night
Bright moonlight before my bed;
I think at first the floor has frost.
I lift my head to the mountain moon,
then bow my head in a dream of home.
Translated by
Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, and Chou Ping
Questioning in the Mountains
You ask me why I live in the jade mountains.
I smile, unanswering. My heart is calm.
Peach petals float on the water, never come back.
There is a heaven and earth beyond
the crowded town below.
Translated by Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, and Chou Ping
Seeing Meng Haoran Off
From Yellow Crane Tower you sail
the river west as mist flowers bloom.
A solitary sail, far shadow, green mountains
at the empty end of vision
And now, just the Yangtze river touching the sky.
Translated by
Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, and Chou Ping
I Listen to Jun, a Monk from Shu, Play His Lute
The Shu monk carries a green silk lute
west down Omei Mountain
and each sweep of his hand
is the song of a thousand pines in the valley.
Flowing water cleans my wanderer's heart
and the sound lingers like a frosty bell
till I forget the mountain soaking in green dusk,
autumn clouds darkly folding in.
Translated by
Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, and Chou Ping
Watching the Waterfall at Lu Mountain
Sunlight steams purple mist off Incense Peak.
Far away, the waterfall is a long hanging river
flying three thousand feet straight down
like the milky river of stars pouring from heaven.
Translated by
Tony Barnstone, Willis Barnstone, and Chou Ping
TU FU
Tu Fu (712-770 CE) was revered as a master of the rigorous "regulated verse" forms of the period. Tu Fu's range of subject matter was exceptionally broad, including a large body of poems of social criticism in the less rigorous "old style" and many moving poems of family life and love. Kenneth Rexroth has called him "the greatest lyric poet in any language."Gazing at T'ai-Shan Mountain
How to describe T'ai-Shan?
Its green rises above all of Ch'i and Lu!
Here the Creator concentrated divine beauty;
its north and south sides split dark from dawn.
Chest pounding, you come to the birthplace of clouds;
bursting eyesockets are filled with returning birds.
Someday I must climb to the very top
and look down on all of the little mountains at once.
Translated by
David Lunde
Enjoying Rain on a Spring Night
The good rain knows its seasons--
born in the spring, it follows the wind,
comes secretly at night,
moistens everything with fine, quiet drops.Country paths and clouds are all black,
fires on the riverboats the only light.
But morning sun reveals splashes of red--
heavy flowers in the City of Brocade.
Translated by
David Lunde
Thoughts While Night Traveling
Slender wind shifting the shore's fine grass.
Lonely at night below my boat's tall mast.
Stars hang low as the vast plain broadens,
the swaying moon makes the great river race.
How can poems make me known?
I'm old and sick, my career over.
Drifting, just drifting. What kind of man am I?
A lone gull floating between earth and sky.
Translated by
Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping
MADAME CHANG
Madame Chang's (T'ang Dynasty) five poems have been preserved, as well as fragments of three others. She came from Shan-yang in modern Chiang-su province; her husband was the noted poet (and government official) Chi Chung-fu, known as one of the "Ten Talents of the Ta-li Reign Period" (766-779 CE).Willow Floss
Thick with mists,
this sweet new day
in spring.A snow of catkins
lifts
from greening withes.Sometimes their floss
meets flowers,
and both
are stirred--not by the wind:
they drift loose
on their own.They pass over goblets,
float
in clear emerald wine.or brush onto bed-drapes,
and stitch their
designs
on dark red heavy silk.What use
restraining sorrow,
making merry?What heart holds
in spring
can't finish itself
off
alone.
Translated by
Jeanne Larsen
PO CHU-I
Po Ch -i (772-846 CE) vowed his poems would be understood at every social level, so he broke with the poetic habits of the literati in two respects. First, his diction was not merely simple but sometimes colloquial, and, second, he frequently lamented the economic and social injustices perpetrated on the poor. However, he also ranged freely among traditional subjects, including, as here, the evocation of emotions using natural scenes.
Rain at Night
An early cricket chirps,
then pauses;
the dying lamp gutters
then flares again.Outside my window
I know it is raining--
the leaves of the banana
first know its drumming.
Translated by
David Lunde
Spring Visit to Chien-Tang Lake
North of Solitary Mountain Temple
and west of Chia Pavilion
the water's surface is flattened
by the wet feet of clouds.Early warblers dart and flutter,
squabbling amid warm trees;
around someone's house new swallows
peck mud for their nests.
Wildflowers will soon flourish
enough to overwhelm one's eyes,
but now the shallow grass
barely submerges a horse's hooves.I love the east lake most--
I don't come this way often enough;
in the shade of green willows
lies White Sand Embankment.
Translated by
David Lunde
Song of the Evening River
Remnants of sun ribbon the river--
half and half, black river red.
Third night, ninth month* lovely hour;
pearled dew, bent bow moon.
Translated by
Matthew Flannery
* This refers to the time of the year's brightest moon.
THE BUDDHIST NUN HAI-YIN
The Buddhist Nun Hai-yin (tenth century CE), having taken holy orders in her youth, resided in Tz'u-kuang temple in Ch'eng-tu (in present-day Szu-ch'uan province) at the end of the T'ang. Although she reportedly resisted fame, she became known for her pure and lofty intelligence, as well as the quality of her poetry. Only one of her poems has been preserved.
At Night, Aboard a Boat: One Text
The river's colors draw out
the colors of the sky.
The sound of wind
whips up
the sound of waves.
The traveler
tastes bitter thoughts of home.
Old fisherman dreams
of ghosts, and
twitches.
Wakes.
He raises oars:
fog-clouds
make land to the fore.
Shifts the boat:
moon follows
in its wake.
Chant a few
bits of poems.
Stop.
Like seeing a line of mountains
crossing
the horizon, far ahead.
Translated by
Jeanne Larsen
LU YU
Lu Yu (1112-1209 CE) called himself "The Wild Old Man." He was a master of "regulated verse" and his work is noted for its clarity and precision of detail.
Thwart-wise Dam
Thwartwise the dam lies north, south;
flash-locks, east, west
as shored up by my stick, go where I wish,
joy, borderless;
earth-tillage betters each day,
hands filling the fields
and as air clots with frost, cold,
geese wingwise across sky's bowl;
tall, short, at random the high town's
watch-towers rise
but stillness in the derelict village
with pittering rain--
just bought a sewn-leaf raincoat,
sort of lichen green
and in my unlived days left, need
old fisherman as side-kick
Translated by
David Gordon
Spring Ramble*
In all that life has spanned
journey is joy--
just can't bear
an always closed door--
day-spring air just cleared
by fresh rain
with one smile, my hat, sandals
ready to go;
dark monkeys, my guides
down a path that hides,
and spring-grass, my crony
on the footway;
though they say this casked
wine is vapid drink
greens and fruit nearly
at my elbow
as the magnolia broaches its bloom
overhead,
and willow catkins, wind downed,
waft through air;
chant song as I jaunt,
not heed road's reach,
then sun at its low, I whoop
to the boondock ferry-boat;
intersecting the woods, crows
already winged to nest
and in the wetland an egret
still stands;
turning homeward, earth suddenly
aburst with vigor--
the old brocade bag has found
a new phrase.
Translated by
David Gordon
* Lu wrote this in 1182, spring, aged fifty-eight in Shao-hsing. "Old brocade bag" in the last couplet refers to the T'ang poet, Li Ho, who carried a brocade bag with him on horseback to hold his jotted lines as he rode.
Returning at Night*
Thin bell clink
wades the water width
as moon, white of ravelled silk
rests midst trees;
smoke from hearth-flame seen,
thatched eaves--
I leaned back
on boat-mat, to gaze.
Translated by
David Gordon
* Lu wrote this in 1195, aged 71, in Shao-hsing.
MA CHIH-YUAN
Ma Chih-yuan (c. 1270-1330 CE) is known as Master of the high poetic style of the Yuan Dynasty. He was also responsible for the rise in popularity and broadening of the content of the new "san-ch'u" lyric form of the period.
Meditation in Autumn To the Tune "The Sky is So Clear"
Withered vines, gnarled trees, twilight crows,
river flowing beneath the little bridge,
past someone's home.
The wind blows from the west*
where the sun sets, it blows
across the ancient road,
across the bony horse,
across the despairing man
who stands at heaven's edge.
Translated by
David Lunde
* The west wind signifies the coming of autumn, literally to the land and
metaphorically to the man.