Poets From China

"The fire in my heart is turned to ashes. I feel like a monk; Only my head is still unshaven.O poor heart! How wind and rain have worn you out! How the partings from friends, dead and alive, Have torn you to pieces!This orphan-like candlestick Appears like an old friend to me.There remains one thing alone That keeps me from a complete Awakening:— Love still smoulders in the ashes of my heart!"

"Those who fail to provide for themselves will eventually injure their friends and those who always provide for their friends will eventually injure themselves."

"Countless hearts of gold have been betrayed. A counterfeit coinage circulates, Buying, not a true response, But numb indifference beneath assumed applause."

"Who sits alone by the bright window? My shadow and I, only we two. But the lamp burns out, there is darkness. Even my shadow forsakes me. Alas, alas! I am forlorn!"

"多少恨，昨夜梦魂中。还似旧时游上苑，车如流水马如龙。花月正春风。"

"Li Yi-an was the greatest poetess of China. Once her husband asked one of his friends to pick out the best lines that he liked from a number of his poems, having, however, concealed in them some pieces by his wife. The friend picked out, to his dismay, only lines from her pen."

"见有人来，袜铲金钗溜，和羞走。倚门回首，却把青梅嗅。"

"簾捲西風，人比黃花瘦。"

"小时候，乡愁是一枚小小的邮票，我在这头，母亲在那头。 长大后，乡愁是一张窄窄的船票， 我在这头，新娘在那头。 后来啊，乡愁是一方矮矮的坟墓，我在外头，母亲在里头。 而现在，乡愁是一湾浅浅的海峡，我在这头，大陆在那头。"

"The Yellow River flows torrential in my veins. China is me I am China."

"Am I not the poet of witness?...Am I not a descendent of Qu Yuan, whose lyric intensity caused him to drown himself in the Mi Lo River in protest?"

"Ch'u Yüan (B.C. 343–c. 290) ranks undoubtedly as one of the three or four greatest poets of China characterized by his intensity of feeling, his rich mythological details, and his somber imagination. The Songs of Ch'u belong in an entirely different category from either the poems of Confucian China, or from the later T'ang poems. His poems are at the same time among those most difficult to read in Chinese."

"O Soul go not to the West Where level wastes of sand stretch on and on; And demons rage, swine-headed, hairy-skinned, With bulging eyes; Who in wild laughter gnash projecting fangs. O Soul go not to the West Where many perils wait!"

"O Soul come back to watch the birds in flight! He who has found such manifold delights Shall feel his cheeks aglow And the blood-spirit dancing through his limbs."

"惟夫党人之偷乐兮，路幽昧以险隘。"

"乱曰：已矣哉， 国无人莫我知兮，又何怀乎故都？ 既莫足与为美政兮，吾将从彭咸之所居。"

"世溷浊而嫉贤兮，好蔽美而称恶。"

"世溷浊而不分兮，好蔽美而嫉妒。"

"余固知謇謇之为患兮。"

"路漫漫其修远兮，吾将上下而求索。"

"The mention of Su Tungpo always elicits an affectionate and warm admiring smile in China."

"清夜无尘，月色如银 。 酒斟时须满十分。 浮名浮利，虚苦劳神。 叹隙中驹， 石中火， 梦中身。 虽抱文章，开口谁亲？ 且陶陶乐尽天真。 几时归去，作个闲人， 对一张琴， 一壶酒， 一溪云。"

"十年生死两茫茫。不思量，自难忘。"

"Families when a child is born Hope it will turn out intelligent. I, through intelligence Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope that the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he'll be happy all his days And grow into a cabinet minister."

"水光潋滟晴方好，山色空蒙雨亦奇。 欲把西湖比西子，淡妆浓抹总相宜。"

"横看成岭侧成峰，远近高低各不同。 不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中。"

"What a ruler has to rely upon is only the human heart. Human hearts are to the ruler what roots are to a tree, what oil is to a lamp, water to fish, fields to a farmer, or money to a merchant."

"There had to be one Su Tungpo, but there could not be two."

"草长莺飞二月天， 拂堤杨柳醉春烟。 儿童放学归来早， 忙趁东风放纸鸢。"

"鹅 鹅 鹅， 曲 项 向 天 歌。 白 毛 浮 绿 水， 红 掌 拨 清 波。"

"Thirty years and more I worked to nullify myself. Now I leap the leap of death. The ground churns up The skies spin round."

"[T]here are those poems so absorbed in the great unknown that death becomes nearly indistinguishable from life. The jisei [or dead poem] of Rankei Doryu, who died in 1278, reads [like that]... The death haiku of Choha, who died in 1740, also evokes this silence."

"Zen practice is not clarifying conceptual distinctions, but throwing away one's preconceived views and notions and the sacred texts and all the rest, and piercing through the layers of coverings over the spring of self behind them. All the holy ones have turned within and sought in the self, and by this went beyond all doubt. To turn within means all the twenty-four hours and in every situation, to pierce one by one through the layers covering the self, deeper and deeper, to a place which cannot be described. It is when thinking comes to an end and making distinctions ceases, when wrong views and ideas disappear of themselves without having to be driven forth, when without being sought the true action and true impulse appear of themselves. It is when one can know what is the truth of the heart."

"If you ask me abruptly Why write poetry Why not do Something useful Then I won't know How to answer you I am like a goldsmith hammering day and night Just so I can extend pain Into a gold ornament as thin as a cicada's wing I don't know if working so hard To transform sorrows into Shimmering words and phrases Is also Beautifully worthwhile."

"Autumn is beginning, the weather is turning chill. Crickets move in to sing under my bed. A thousand things surge into my mind And grieve my heart. A thousand tales search for words; But to whom will they be told? The morning breeze flows under my sleeves, The moonlight thins, And the cock crows, As I turn my horses' heads towards home."

"Inscribe on your heart Every inch of the time at sunset."

"There is a fair woman in the west, who is as bright as sunlight. She wears a dress of the finest silk and jewelry shines from her left, her right. Her face is a charm, so full of grace, lightly perfuming the breeze. Climbing upward, she keeps watch for her loved one, holding her sleeves, she faces the morning sun. She hovers, she drifts through the sky, waving her sleeves, she dances, flies like the wind, like a cloud, in [a] trance. Every so often, she glances at me, but for me this beauty is out of reach. Left alone, I lament my fate."

"The mountain moon shines on a cloudless sky. Deep in the night the wind rises among the pines. I wish to weave my thoughts into a song for my jade lute, But the pine wind never ceases blowing."

"能解者方有辛酸之泪，哭成此書。壬午除夕，書未成，芹爲泪盡而逝。余常哭芹，泪亦待盡。每思覓青埂峰再問石兄，奈不遇癩頭和尚何！悵悵！今而後惟願造化主再出一芹一脂，是書何幸，余二人亦大快遂心於九泉矣。甲午八日泪筆。"

"The idea that the worldling's 'reality' is illusion and that life itself is a dream from which we shall eventually awake is of course a Buddhist one; but in Xueqin's hands it becomes a poetical means of demonstrating that his characters are both creatures of his imagination and at the same time the real companions of his golden youth. To that extent it can be thought of as a literary device rather than as a deeply held philosophy, though it is really both."

"Proud bones such as yours the world finds rare; These are the crags of a true eccentric. You wield your brush like a roof beam, propelled by wine; From out your bosom pour rugged rocks."

"Ostensibly, [Cao Xueqin] has written a Taoist or Zen Buddhist comedy, showing mankind's hopeless involvement in desire and pain and the liberation of at least a few select individuals besides the hero. But only ostensibly, because the reader cannot but feel that the reality of suffering as depicted in the novel stirs far deeper layers of his being than the reality of Taoist wisdom; he cannot but respond to the author's vast sympathy for young and old, innocent and scheming, self-denying and self-indulgent. [...] In devoting his creative career to tracing the history of Baoyu and the Jia clan, Cao Xueqin is therefore the tragic artist caught between nostalgia for, and tormented determination to seek liberation from, the world of red dust."

"侬今葬花人笑痴，他年葬侬知是谁？"

"一朝春尽红颜老，花落人亡两不知！"

"字字看來皆是血，十年辛苦不尋常 。"

"Cao Xueqin is a master of language. His prose is so exquisite and aesthetically pleasing that it almost attains perfection in every way."

"一个是水中月，一个是镜中花。"

"开辟鸿蒙，谁为情种？都只为风月情浓。"

"家富人宁，终有个家亡人散各奔腾。"

"女兒是水作的骨肉，男人是泥作的骨肉。我見了女兒，我便清爽；見了男子，便覺濁臭逼人。"