No More Learning

Walls and fences all broken and gaping,
Thorns and brambles shooting up to the sky.
I do not see the old old-men:
I only see the new young men.
I turn aside, for the straight road is lost:
The fields are overgrown and will never be ploughed again.
I have been away such a long time
That I do not know which street is which.
How sad and ugly the empty moors are!
A thousand miles without the smoke of a chimney.
I think of the house I lived in all those years:
I am heart-tied and cannot speak.

The above poem vaguely recalls a famous Anglo-Saxon fragment which I
will make intelligible by semi-translation:

"Wondrous was the wall-stone,
Weirdly[19] broken;
Burgh-steads bursten,
Giants' work tumbleth,
Roofs are wrenched,
Towers totter,
Bereft of rune-gates.
Smoke is on the plaster,
Scarred the shower-burghs,
Shorn and shattered,
By eld under-eaten.
Earth's grip haveth
Wealders[20] and workmen. "

[19] By Fate.

[20] Rulers.


THE COCK-FIGHT

By Ts'ao Chih

Our wandering eyes are sated with the dancer's skill.
Our ears are weary with the sound of "kung" and "shang. "[21]
Our host is silent and sits doing nothing:
All the guests go on to places of amusement.
* * * * *

On long benches the sportsmen sit ranged
Round a cleared room, watching the fighting-cocks.
The gallant birds are all in battle-trim:
They raise their tails and flap defiantly.
Their beating wings stir the calm air:
Their angry eyes gleam with a red light.
Where their beaks have struck, the fine feathers are scattered:
With their strong talons they wound again and again.
Their long cries enter the blue clouds;
Their flapping wings tirelessly beat and throb.
"Pray God the lamp-oil lasts a little longer,
Then I shall not leave without winning the match! "

[21] Notes of the scale.


A VISION

By Ts'ao Chih

In the Nine Provinces there is not room enough:
I want to soar high among the clouds,
And, far beyond the Eight Limits of the compass,
Cast my gaze across the unmeasured void.
I will wear as my gown the red mists of sunrise,
And as my skirt the white fringes of the clouds:
My canopy--the dim lustre of Space:
My chariot--six dragons mounting heavenward:
And before the light of Time has shifted a pace
Suddenly stand upon the World's blue rim.
The doors of Heaven swing open,
The double gates shine with a red light.
I roam and linger in the palace of W? n-ch'ang,[22]
I climb up to the hall of T'ai-wei. [22]
The Lord God lies at his western lattice:
And the lesser Spirits are together in the eastern gallery.
They wash me in a bath of rainbow-spray
And gird me with a belt of jasper and rubies.
I wander at my ease gathering divine herbs:
I bend down and touch the scented flowers.
Wang-tz?