No More Learning

Clutching at Orion, passing the Well Star, I look up and gasp. Then
beating my breast sit and groan aloud.

I fear I shall never return from my westward wandering; the way is
steep and the rocks cannot be climbed.

Sometimes the voice of a bird calls among the ancient trees--a male
calling to its wife, up and down through the woods. Sometimes a
nightingale sings to the moon, weary of empty hills.

It would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk the Szechwan Road;
and those who hear the tale of it turn pale with fear.

Between the hill-tops and the sky there is not a cubit's space.
Withered pine-trees hang leaning over precipitous walls.

Flying waterfalls and rolling torrents mingle their din. Beating the
cliffs and circling the rocks, they thunder in a thousand valleys.

Alas! O traveller, why did you come to so fearful a place? The Sword
Gate is high and jagged. If one man stood in the Pass, he could hold it
against ten thousand.

The guardian of the Pass leaps like a wolf on all who are not his
kinsmen.
In the daytime one hides from ravening tigers and in the night from
long serpents, that sharpen their fangs and lick blood, slaying men
like grass.

They say the Embroidered City is a pleasant place, but I had rather be
safe at home.

For it would be easier to climb to Heaven than to walk the Szechwan
Road.

I turn my body and gaze longingly towards the West.

* * * * *

[When Li Po came to the capital and showed this poem to Ho Chih-ch'ang,
Chih-ch'ang raised his eyebrows and said: "Sir, you are not a man of
this world. You must indeed be the genius of the star T'ai-po" (xxxiv.
36). ]


III. 15. FIGHTING

Last year we were fighting at the source of the San-kan;
This year we are fighting at the Onion River road.
We have washed our swords in the surf of Indian seas;
We have pastured our horses among the snows of T'ien Shan.
Three armies have grown gray and old,
Fighting ten thousand leagues away from home.
The Huns have no trade but battle and carnage;
They have no pastures or ploughlands,
But only wastes where white bones lie among yellow sands.
Where the house of Ch'in built the great wall that was to keep away
the Tartars,
There, in its turn, the house of Han lit beacons of war.
The beacons are always alight; fighting and marching never stop.
Men die in the field, slashing sword to sword;
The horses of the conquered neigh piteously to Heaven.