No More Learning

Now and of old your journeys have never ceased:
Strong were that man's limbs
Who could run beside you on your travels to and fro.

The grass does not refuse
To flourish in the spring wind;
The leaves are not angry
At falling through the autumn sky.
Who with whip or spur
Can urge the feet of Time?
The things of the world flourish and decay,
Each at its own hour.

Hsi-ho, Hsi-ho,[21]
Is it true that once you loitered in the West
While Lu Yang[22] raised his spear, to hold
The progress of your light;
Then plunged and sank in the turmoil of the sea?
Rebels against Heaven, slanderers of Fate;
Many defy the Way.
But _I_ will put | the Whole Lump | of Life in my bag,
And merge my being in the Primal Element.

[21] Charioteer of the Sun.

[22] Who, like Joshua, stopped the sun during a battle. See Huai-nan
Tz? , chap. vi.


IV. 19. ON THE BANKS OF JO-YEH

By the river-side at Jo-yeh,
girls plucking lotus;
Laughing across the lotus-flowers,
each whispers to a friend.
Their powdered cheeks, lit by the sun,
are mirrored deep in the pool;
Their scented skirts, caught by the wind,
flap high in the air.

Who are these gaily riding
along the river-bank,
Three by three and five by five,
glinting through the willow-boughs?
Deep the hoofs of their neighing roans
sink into the fallen leaves;
The riders see, for a moment pause,
and are gone with a pang at heart.


IV. 24. CH'ANG-KAN

Soon after I wore my hair covering my forehead
I was plucking flowers and playing in front of the gate,
When _you_ came by, walking on bamboo-stilts
Along the trellis,[23] playing with the green plums.
We both lived in the village of Ch'ang-kan,
Two children, without hate or suspicion.
At fourteen I became your wife;
I was shame-faced and never dared smile.
I sank my head against the dark wall;
Called to a thousand times, I did not turn.
At fifteen I stopped wrinkling my brow
And desired my ashes to be mingled with your dust.
I thought you were like the man who clung to the bridge:[24]
Not guessing I should climb the Look-for-Husband Terrace,[25]
But next year you went far away,
To Ch'u-t'ang and the Whirling Water Rocks.
In the fifth month "one should not venture there"[26]
Where wailing monkeys cluster in the cliffs above.
In front of the door, the tracks you once made
One by one have been covered by green moss--
Moss so thick that I cannot sweep it away,
And leaves are falling in the early autumn wind.
Yellow with August the pairing butterflies
In the western garden flit from grass to grass.
The sight of these wounds my heart with pain;
As I sit and sorrow, my red cheeks fade.
Send me a letter and let me know in time
When your boat will be going through the three gorges of Pa.