No More Learning

ON HEARING SOMEONE SING A POEM BY YUAN CH? N

Written long after Ch? n's death

No new poems his brush will trace:
Even his fame is dead.
His old poems are deep in dust
At the bottom of boxes and cupboards.
Once lately, when someone was singing,
Suddenly I heard a verse--
Before I had time to catch the words
A pain had stabbed my heart.


THE PHILOSOPHERS

LAO-TZ?

"Those who speak know nothing;
Those who know are silent. "
These words, as I am told,
Were spoken by Lao-tz? .
If we are to believe that Lao-tz?
Was himself _one who knew_,
How comes it that he wrote a book
Of five thousand words?

CHUANG-TZ? , THE MONIST

Chuang-tz? levels all things
And reduces them to the same Monad.
But _I_ say that even in their sameness
Difference may be found.
Although in following the promptings of their nature
They display the same tendency,
Yet it seems to me that in some ways
A phoenix is superior to a reptile!


TAOISM AND BUDDHISM

Written shortly before his death

A traveller came from across the seas
Telling of strange sights.
"In a deep fold of the sea-hills
I saw a terrace and tower.
In the midst there stood a Fairy Temple
With one niche empty.
They all told me this was waiting
For Lo-t'ien to come. "

Traveller, I have studied the Empty Gate;[97]
I am no disciple of Fairies
The story you have just told
Is nothing but an idle tale.
The hills of ocean shall never be
Lo-t'ien's home.
When I leave the earth it will be to go
To the Heaven of Bliss Fulfilled. [98]

[97] Buddhism. The poem is quite frivolous, as is shown by his claim to
Bodhisattva-hood.

[98] The "tushita" Heaven, where Bodhisattvas wait till it is time for
them to appear on earth as Buddhas.


LAST POEM

* * * * *

They have put my bed beside the unpainted screen;
They have shifted my stove in front of the blue curtain.
I listen to my grandchildren, reading me a book;
I watch the servants, heating up my soup.
With rapid pencil I answer the poems of friends;
I feel in my pockets and pull out medicine-money.
When this superintendence of trifling affairs is done,
I lie back on my pillows and sleep with my face to the
South.


THE END


CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.