From non-being into being: the cloud peaks gather;
From being back to non-being: the lightning flash goes out.
To gather or to disperse is all illusory:
Only the meddlers keep up their useless jabbering.
translated by Irving Y. Lo
T’ang Dynasty
On The Yo-Yang Tower With His Friend, Chia by Li Po (Li Bai)
Here from the tower we may view
The whole fair region of Yo-yang,
And the winding river
Opening into the Tung-ting Lake.
O wild geese, flying past,
Take away with you the sorrow of the heart!
And, come, thou mountain, give us thy happy moon!
Here will we sit to feast
And tarry a while with the clouds
And pass the cup high above the world of cares.
When we are goodly warm with wine,
Then, thou cooling breeze, arise!
Come and blow as we dance!
And our sleeves will flap like wings.
translated by Shigeyoshi Obata
Addressed Humorously to Tu Fu by Li Po (Li Bei)
Here! is this you on the top of Fan-ko Mountain,
Wearing a huge hat in the noon-day sun?
How thin, how wretchedly thin, you have grown!
You must have been suffering from poetry again.
translated by Shigeyoshi Obata
A Farewell Song Of White Clouds by Li Po (Li Bai)
The white clouds float over the mountains of Chu–
As over the mountains of Chin.
Everywhere the white clouds will follow you on.
They will follow you on everywhere–
With you they will enter the Chu mountains,
And cross the waters of the Hsiang.
Yonder across the waters of the Hsiang,
There is a cloak of ivy to wear,
And you may lie in a bed of white clouds.
Go swiftly home, O my friend!
translated by Shigeyoshi Obata
A Farewell To Meng Hao-jan On His Way To Yang-chou by Li Po (Li Bei)
You have left me behind, old friend, at Yellow Crane Terrace,
On your way to visit Yang-chou in the misty month of flowers;
Your sail, a single shadow, becomes one with the blue sky,
Till now I see only the river, on its way to heaven.
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
A Night-Mooring Near Maple Bridge by Chang Chi
While I watch the moon go down, a crow caws through the frost;
Under the shadows of maple trees a fisherman moves with his torch;
And I hear, from beyond Su-chou, from the temple on Cold Mountain,
Ringing for me, here in my boat, the midnight bell.
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
The Day of No Fire by unknown Chinese poet
As the holiday approaches, and grasses are bright after rain,
And the causeway gleams with willows, and wheatfields wave in the wind,
We are thinking of our kinfolk, far away from us.
O cuckoo, why do you follow us, why do you call us home?
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
from Long Lines Sent To Ling Hu-ch’u Before He Comes To Visit My Tumbledown Home by Po Chü-I
Serving the poetry master with writing-brush and inkstone,
I’m steadied by music and my friend, the immortality of wine,
but for lofty sentiments, I stay close to things themselves:
green moss, rock bamboo-shoots, water lilies in white bloom.
translated by David Hinton
Lines by Wang Wei
You who have come from my old country,
Tell me what has happened there!–
Was the plum, when you passed my silken window,
Opening its first cold blossom?
translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu
from An Exile’s Letter by Li Po (Li Bai)
What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking,
There is no end of things in the heart.
I call in the boy,
Have him sit on his knees here
To seal this,
And send it a thousand miles, thinking.
translated by Ezra Pound
Leonard Durso 