No More Learning

Sometimes we went out towards the western corner of the City, to where
waters like green jade flow round the temple of Shu Yu. [41] We launched
our boat and sported on the stream, while flutes and drums sounded. The
little waves were like dragon-scales, and the sedge-leaves were pale
green. When it was our mood, we took girls with us and gave ourselves
to the moments that passed, forgetting that it would soon be over, like
willow-flowers or snow. Rouged faces, flushed with drink, looked well
in the sunset. Clear water a hundred feet deep reflected the faces
of the singers--singing-girls delicate and graceful in the light of
the young moon. And the girls sang again and again to make the gauze
dresses dance. The clear wind blew the songs away into the empty sky:
the sound coiled in the air like moving clouds in flight.

[41] A brother of Prince Ch'? ng, of the Chou dynasty.

The pleasures of those times shall never again be met with. I went West
to offer up a Ballad of Tall Willows,[42] but got no promotion at the
Northern Gate and, white-headed, went back to the Eastern Hills.

[42] Yang Hsiung, died A. D. 18, having lived all his life in obscurity,
obtained promotion in his old age by a poem of this title.
Once we met at the Southern end of Wei Bridge, but scattered again to
the north of the Tso Terrace.

And if you ask me how many are my regrets at this parting, I will tell
you they come from me thick as the flowers that fall at Spring's end.

But I cannot tell you all I feel; I could not even if I went on talking
for ever. So I call in the boy and make him kneel here and tie this up,
and send it to you, a remembrance, from a thousand miles away.


XV. 2. A DREAM OF T'IEN-MU MOUNTAIN

(_Part of a Poem in Irregular Metre. _)

On through the night I flew, high over the Mirror Lake. The lake-moon
cast my shadow on the waves and travelled with me to the stream of
Shan. The Lord Hsieh's[43] lodging-place was still there. The blue
waters rippled; the cry of the apes was shrill. I shod my feet with
the shoes of the Lord Hsieh and "climbed to Heaven on a ladder of dark
clouds. "[44] Half-way up, I saw the unrisen sun hiding behind the sea
and heard the Cock of Heaven crowing in the sky. By a thousand broken
paths I twisted and turned from crag to crag. My eyes grew dim. I
clutched at the rocks, and all was dark.