No More Learning

I put the shoots in a great earthen pot
And heat them up along with boiling rice.
The purple nodules broken,--like an old brocade;
The white skin opened,--like new pearls.
Now every day I eat them recklessly;
For a long time I have not touched meat.
All the time I was living at Lo-yang
They could not give me enough to suit my taste,
Now I can have as many shoots as I please;
For each breath of the south-wind makes a new bamboo!


THE RED COCKATOO

Sent as a present from Annam--
A red cockatoo.
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking with the speech of men.
And they did to it what is always done
To the learned and eloquent.
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it up inside.


AFTER LUNCH

After lunch--one short nap:
On waking up--two cups of tea.
Raising my head, I see the sun's light
Once again slanting to the south-west.
Those who are happy regret the shortness of the day;
Those who are sad tire of the year's sloth.
But those whose hearts are devoid of joy or sadness
Just go on living, regardless of "short" or "long. "


ALARM AT FIRST ENTERING THE YANG-TZE GORGES

Written in 818, when he was being towed up the rapids to Chung-chou.

Above, a mountain ten thousand feet high:
Below, a river a thousand fathoms deep.
A strip of green, walled by cliffs of stone:
Wide enough for the passage of a single reed.
[82]
At Chu-t'ang a straight cleft yawns:
At Yen-yu islands block the stream.
Long before night the walls are black with dusk;
Without wind white waves rise.
The big rocks are like a flat sword:
The little rocks resemble ivory tusks.

[82] See Odes, v, 7.

* * * * *

We are stuck fast and cannot move a step.
How much the less, three hundred miles? [83]
Frail and slender, the twisted-bamboo rope:
Weak, the dangerous hold of the towers' feet.
A single slip--the whole convoy lost:
And _my_ life hangs on _this_ thread!
I have heard a saying "He that has an upright heart
Shall walk scathless through the lands of Man and Mo. "[84]
How can I believe that since the world began
In every shipwreck none have drowned but rogues?
And how can I, born in evil days[85]
And fresh from failure,[86] ask a kindness of Fate?
Often I fear that these un-talented limbs
Will be laid at last in an un-named grave!

[83] The distance to Chung-chou.

[84] Dangerous savages.

[85] Of civil war.

[86] Alluding to his renewed banishment.