No More Learning

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.
Crows and hawks peck for human guts,
Carry them in their beaks and hang them on the branches of withered
trees.
Captains and soldiers are smeared on the bushes and grass;
The General schemed in vain.
Know therefore that the sword is a cursed thing
Which the wise man uses only if he must.


III. 16. DRINKING SONG

See the waters of the Yellow River leap down from Heaven,
Roll away to the deep sea and never turn again!
See at the mirror in the High Hall
Aged men bewailing white locks--
In the morning, threads of silk;
In the evening flakes of snow!
Snatch the joys of life as they come and use them to the fill;
Do not leave the silver cup idly glinting at the moon.
The things Heaven made
Man was meant to use;
A thousand guilders scattered to the wind may come back again.
Roast mutton and sliced beef will only taste well
If you drink with them at one sitting three hundred cups.