Read The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry Online
Authors: Tony Barnstone
My home is where the town stops.
Carefree and alone, I stop then walk
then stop and sit in the shade of tall trees.
My path stops within my brushwood gate.
The best taste is to stopper my mouth with garden vegetables.
My greatest joy stops with my youngest son.
All my life I have not stopped drinking.
I'm never happy when I stop.
If I stop at night I cannot sleep well;
if I stop in the morning, I cannot get up.
Every day I tried to stop drinking,
but my energy flow stopped and became disordered.
I only knew that abstinence stops pleasure
without knowing that to stop has benefits.
Now I truly realize how good it is to stop drinking,
and am really going to stop this morning.
I will stop from now on,
till I reach the Isle of Immortals where the sun stops
till my old face stops and a clear face returns.
I won't be satisfied till I've stopped for ten thousand years.
All creatures start and end in death.
Since ancient times this has been true.
It's said there were immortals like Song and Qiao,
1
but where are they now?
An old man gives me a present of wine
and says drink will make me live forever.
A few sips and one hundred emotions recede.
More cups and I forget the heavens.
Have the heavens really dissolved in this?
Let me be as natural as nature, and nature as natural as me.
The cranes in clouds have amazing wings;
in a flash they touch the universe's eight corners.
Since I embraced my own true nature
I have worked for forty years
and long ago transformed my body,
but my mind still exists, and what else is there to say?
My hair is gray on both sides,
my muscles and skin no longer firm.
Though I have five sons,
none of them is fond of ink brushes and paper.
Ah Shu is twice eight years old;
no one can match his laziness.
Ah Xuan is the age to be devoted to study
yet does not like writing at all.
Yong and Duan are both thirteen;
they cannot tell six from seven.
The youngest son Tong is almost nine
and only cares to scrounge for pears and nuts.
Since that is what heaven decrees for me,
let me finish the thing in my cup!
I had my thatched cottage built in a poor lane,
willing to give up elegant carriages,
but in June a long violent wind rushed
and woods and cottage caught fire in a second.
My house went up, all rooms gone,
so I live in twin boats moored in shade by the gate.
Vast is the night sky of a new autumn.
Soon the moon will be high and round.
Fruit and vegetables have come back to life,
but the startled birds haven't yet returned.
At midnight I stand still and let my thoughts roam;
with one glance they travel nine heavens.
Since I tied my hair up as a teen, I've stuck to my own path.
Now I'm already past forty.
My body changed according to the law of nature,
while my spirit house remained solitary and unused,
true to its own inner nature.
Jade and stone cannot match that firmness.
I look up at the sky and recall the time of King Donghu,
1
when surplus food was left in the fields.
With stomachs filled, people had no worries,
rising in the morning, coming home at night to sleep.
Since I was not born in such days,
let me just water my own garden.
I live a retired life with little joy,
and worse, the nights are lengthening.
Occasionally I get hold of some famous liquor,
and I drink every evening,
gazing at my shadow, soaking up what's in my cup.
Without knowing it I get drunk again
and since I'm already drunk,
I often write a few lines to make myself happy.
The sheets of inked paper have accumulated,
never put together in any order,
so I asked my friends to make a neat copy
to let all of us have some fun.
I built my hut near people
yet never hear carriage or horse.
“How can that be?” you ask.
Since my heart is a wilderness, the world fades.
Gathering chrysanthemum by the east fence,
my lazy eyes meet South Mountain.
Mountain air is clean at twilight
as birds soar homeward wing to wing.
Beneath these things a revelation hides,
but it dies on the tongue when I try to speak.
Early this morning I heard someone knock,
and rushed to the door with my clothes upside down.
I called out, “Who's there?”
A kindhearted old farmer
bringing me a pot of wine from far away.
He thought I was not moving with the times.
“To stand under thatched eaves in rags—
that is not the high branch where you should nest.
All the world is moving in the same direction.
Please go with the muddy flow.”
I was deeply touched by the villager's words,
but by nature I'm in harmony with no one.
Though it's true I can learn to turn my wagon around,
won't I be lost if I act against my nature?
Let's just enjoy this wine.
My wagon will not turn around!
Old friends appreciate my pastime
and come with a pot of wine.
We sit on strewn rushes under a pine tree.
A few rounds later we are drunk.
Old people start babbling,
confusing the toast order.
When oblivious to your own existence,
how can you know what things to value?
If you are so long attached to things,
how can you know the taste of wine is deep?
There is life and there must be death.
Early death does not mean life is rushing.
Last night I still was a human being;
this morning I'm in the book of ghosts.
Where is the soul after its dispersal?
Only my dry corpse is trusted to the coffin.
Little sons are crying for their father,
good friends touch me and weep.
I will never again know gain, loss,
or the right, wrong, of the human world.
After a thousand autumns,
who can tell glory from disgrace?
I regret only one thing:
I didn't drink enough when I had breath.
In the past I had no wine to drink;
now the cup is filled in vain.
Foam rises on the surface of spring wine.
When can I taste it again?
A table of food is laid out before me.
Family and friends cry by my side.
No sound comes when I try to speak.
No light in my eyes when I try to look.
I slept in a hall last night.
Now I sleep in the country of weeds.
One day I left my house,
and on no day can I come back.
Wild grasses are vast and boundless
and white poplars rustle in wind.
Heavy frost comes in mid-October,
when I am carried off to a far neighborhood.
There is no one living around me,
only tombs stand tall.
Horses neigh up to the sky
and wind is whining for me.
After the dark chamber is closed,
I won't see sun for thousands of years.
No sun for thousands of years,
and even a wise man can't help it.
All the people who carried me here
return now to their homes.
Relatives may still have leftover sorrow,
but others are already singing.
Dead and gone, what can I say?
I just trust my body to the mountains.
1
Refers to the story of Han Xin in the “Historical Records” by Sima Qian. Han Xin was very poor when he was young. While he was fishing, an old woman washing clothes noticed his hunger and provided him with food. When Han Xin became the king of Chu, he looked for the old woman and gave her a thousand pieces of gold. After the old woman's death, he had her buried in a position in symmetry with that of his mother.
1
Song refers to Chi Songzi (Red Pine), the legendary Rain Master who worked for the sage-king Shen Nong in ancient times, and Qiao refers to Wang Ziqiao, a prince who practiced on Song Mountain to become an immortal. Both of them supposedly achieved immortality.
1
Donghu refers to Donghu Jizi, a legendary king who lived in ancient times. It is said that during his reign times were so good that food was in abundance and one could leave one's things lying about on the roadside and no one would bother them.
Su Xiaoxiao, also known as Su Xiaojun, came from Qiantang and was the sister of Su Pannu. She lived during the Southern Song dynasty, which was centered in Hangzhou in the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period of 420–589 (not to be confused with the later Southern Song dynasty 1127–1279). She was a well-known singing girl (courtesan), reputed to be beautiful, talented, and affectionate. Her poems can be found in
Flowers and Grass Selection (huacao cuibian)
, vol. II, as well as in
Complete Song Lyric Songs (quan songci).
Her poem “The Song of the West Tomb” became extremely famous and was the inspiration for many future poems. Su Xiaoxiao herself became the subject of many later literary works (see, for example, Li He's poem “Su Xiaoxiao's Tomb”). “The Song of the West Tomb” appears in a collection of Music Bureau poems (
yuefu shiji)
under the title of “Song of Su Xiaoxiao,” and though she is sometimes considered more of a literary character than a real historical figure, tombs
associated with her are found by the West Lake in Hangzhou and elsewhere.
Thousands of miles off, behind countless mountain passes,
you make me grieve.
Do you even know that?
Since you left
I've counted the leftover days in winter, waited out spring.
Still not one word.
All the flowers have bloomed
and you are still gone.
I ride in an oil-paper carriage,
you ride a black steed.
Where are we going to tie our heart knot?
Under the cypress at the West Tomb.
I live by the Qiantang River.
Flowers fall, bloom again, but I don't care about flowing years.
Swallows have carried spring off in their beaks.
A few yellow plum blossoms shower my gauze window.
With a slant unicorn comb in my half-loosened hair
I gently play my hardwood clappers
and sing about gold thread,
about my dream interrupted, colorful clouds nowhere to be found,
a bright moon deep in the night emerging over the south river
mouth.
Bao Zhao was born in Donghai (modern Changshu, Jiangsu province) to a family of poor gentry. Though he didn't have access to a high official career, he held a post as a magistrate. He was murdered by mutinous soldiers while in military service to the prince of Linhai. His “Rhyme Prose on the Desolate City” is one of his most famous works; in it, he meditates on the ruined city of Guangling, which he visited after the revolt of 459 in which a feudal lord raised a rebellion but found his armies crushed, the city leveled, and more than three thousand inhabitants massacred. Bao Zhao's literary talent earned him patrons, and he is considered the most important poet who wrote in the
yuefu
form in the Six Dynasties Period. His literary influence extends into the Tang dynasty and was particularly important to the work of Li Bai and Du Fu. Of his Music Bureau poems, his “Variations on ‘The Weary Road'” sequence is the most celebrated and imitated.
Don't you see how grass on the riverbank
in winter withers and dies, yet in spring floods the road?
Don't you see how the sun above the walls
evaporates to nothing at dusk
yet tomorrow at dawn is reborn?
But how can we achieve that?
When dead we're dead forever, down in Yellow Springs.
Life has lavish bitterness, is stingy with joy,
and only the young are filled with endless zeal.
So let's just meet whenever we can
and always keep wine money ready by our beds.
Who cares for rank and fame inscribed on bamboo and silk? Life, death, acclaim, obscurity—leave them to heaven.
Facing the table I have no appetite,
draw my sword and hack at a pillar. Then I sigh long.
Life in this world is so brief.
How can I take small steps with drooping wings?
No, I'll give up my official position
and return home to relax.
I said good-bye to my family just this morning,
and in the evening I'm already back.
I play with my son by the bed,
and watch my wife working the loom.
Since ancient times sages have been poor and humble,
especially when like me they are shut out and speak too much.
You—a light swan goose, playing by a riverside,
me—an isolated wild goose nesting on a shoal.
A chance meeting brought us close,
and we couldn't stop missing each other.
But as wind and rains travel east or west,
our separation is instantly thousands of miles.
Recalling the time when we nested there,
my heart fills with your face and voice.
The setting sun makes the river and shoals cold as sad clouds wrap up the sky.
My wings are too short to soar—
I can only circle around in the mist.
Bao Linghui was the younger sister of Bao Zhao (c. 414–466). Six of her poems survive because they were included in a compilation of Bao Zhao's works. Although little is known of her life, Zhong Rong (469–518) writes of her in his work of literary criticism
Poetry Gradings:
“Linghui's songs and poems often stand out and are pure and well made. Her poems in imitation of the ancient style are particularly good.”
1
Since you left,
I never smile by the window,
clubs to beat clothes clean are still at night,
and the high gates are closed all day.
Fireflies swim in the fine net.
Purple orchid blooms in the courtyard.
In dry poplar leaves I see the seasons change.
When wild geese return I know your journey's cold.
You'll roam until late winter ends,
but I expect you back by spring.