Li Po 701 –  762 Chinese poet

Yearning Misted the flowers weep as light dies Moon of white silk sleeplessly cries. Stilled - Phoenix wings. Touched - Mandarin strings. This song tells secrets that no one knows To far Yenjan on Spring breeze it goes. To you it flies Through the night skies. Sidelong - Eyes. How White tears fill now! Heart’s pain? Come see - In this mirror with me. We Fought for - South of the Walls                   We fought for Mulberry Springs                   Die now for Garlic River.                   Wash our swords in Parthian Seas,                   Feed our mounts on T’ien Shan snows.                   Thousands of miles to and fro.                   The Three Armies tired and old.                   These Huns kill instead of ploughing,                   Sow white bones in desert sand.                   Ch’in built the Great Wall.                   Han keeps the bright beacons.                   These fires never die.                   These wars never end.                   Hand to hand we fight and fail,                   Horses screaming to the skies.                   Kites and crows pick at our flesh                   Perch on dead trees with our dead.                   We paint the grasses red,                   Because our General had a plan.                   The sword I say’s an evil thing.                   A wise man keeps it from his hand Viewing Heaven's Gate Mountains The River Chu cuts through the middle of heaven's gate, The green water flowing east reaches here then swirls. On either bank the blue hills face towards each other, The flatness of a lonely sail comes from by of the sun. To His Two Children In the land of Wu the mulberry leaves are green, And thrice the silkworms have gone to sleep. In East Luh where my family stay, I wonder who is sowing those fields of ours. I cannot be back in time for the spring doings, Yet I can help nothing, traveling on the river. The south wind blowing wafts my homesick spirit And carries it up to the front of our familiar tavern. There I see a peach tree on the east side of the house With thick leaves and branches waving in the blue mist. It is the tree I planted before my parting three years ago. The peach tree has grown now as tall as the tavern roof, While I have wandered about without returning. Ping-yang, my pretty daughter, I see you stand By the peach tree and pluck a flowering branch. You pluck the flowers, but I am not there How your tears flow like a stream of water! My little son, Po-chin, grown up to your sister's shoulders, You come out with her under the peach tree, But who is there to pat you on the back? When I think of these things, my senses fail, And a sharp pain cuts my heart every day. Now I tear off a piece of white silk to write this letter, And send it to you with my love a long way up the river. Through The Yangzi Gorges From the walls of Baidi high in the coloured dawn To Jiangling by night-fall is three hundred miles, Yet monkeys are still calling on both banks behind me To my boat these ten thousand mountains away. Thoughts On A Still Night Before my bed, the moon is shining bright, I think that it is frost upon the ground. I raise my head and look at the bright moon, I lower my head and think of home. The River Song This boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are           cut magnolia, Musicians with jewelled flutes and with pipes of gold Fill full the sides in rows, and our wine Is rich for a thousand cups. We carry singing girls, drift with the drifting water, Yet Sennin needs A yellow stork for a charger, and all our seamen Would follow the white gulls or ride them. Kutsu's prose song Hangs with the sun and moon. King So's terraced palace                                       is now but barren hill, But I draw pen on this barge Causing the five peaks to tremble, And I have joy in these words                                       like the joy of blue islands. (If glory could last forever Then the waters of Han would flow northward.) And I have moped in the Emperor's garden, await-         ing an order-to-write ! I looked at the dragon-pond, with its willow-         coloured water Just reflecting the sky's tinge, And heard the five-score nightingales aimlessly singing. The eastern wind brings the green colour into the           island grasses at Yei-shu, The purple house and the crimson are full of Spring           softness. South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue and           bluer, Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-like           palace. Vine-strings a hundred feet long hang down from           carved railings, And high over the willows, the fine birds sing to           each other, and listen, Crying—‘Kwan, Kuan,' for the early wind, and the           feel of it. The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and           wanders off. Over a thousand gates, over a thousand doors are           the sounds of spring singing, And the Emperor is at Ko. Five clouds hang aloft, bright on the purple sky, The imperial guards come forth from the golden           house with their armour a-gleaming. The Emperor in his jewelled car goes out to inspect           his flowers, He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping           storks, He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new           nightingales, For the gardens at Jo-run are full of new nighting-           gales, Their sound is mixed in this flute, Their voice is in the twelve pipes here. The Cold Clear Spring At Nanyang A pity it is evening, yet I do love the water of this spring seeing how clear it is, how clean; rays of sunset gleam on it, lighting up its ripples, making it one with those who travel the roads; I turn and face the moon; sing it a song, then listen to the sound of the wind amongst the pines. The Ching-Ting Mountain Flocks of birds have flown high and away; A solitary drift of cloud, too, has gone, wandering on. And I sit alone with the Ching-ting Peak, towering beyond. We never grow tired of each other, the mountain and I. Summer Day in the Mountains In a copse of green pines, I fling my hat on a rockspur, hurling after it the rest of my clothes. Stretched at ease on soft grass, lazily, I flick a white-feather fan, as a pine breeze plays in my loose, unknotted hair. In Spring Your grasses up north are as blue as jade, Our mulberries here curve green-threaded branches; And at last you think of returning home, Now when my heart is almost broken.... O breeze of the spring, since I dare not know you, Why part the silk curtains by my bed? Going Up Yoyang Tower We climbed Yoyang Tower with all the scene around coming into vision; looking up the Great River seeing boats turn and enter the Tungting Lake; geese crying farewell to the river as they flew south; evening falling as if mountain tops upt up the moon with their lips; and we in the Yoyang Tower as if with heads amongst the cloud, drinking wine as if the cups came from heaven itself; then having drunk our fill there blew a cold wind filling out our sleeves, it seeming as though we were dancing in time with it. Clearing at Dawn The fields are chill, the sparse rain has stopped; The colours of Spring teem on every side. With leaping fish the blue pond is full; With singing thrushes the green boughs droop. The flowers of the field have dabbled their powdered cheeks; The mountain grasses are bent level at the waist. By the bamboo stream the last fragment of cloud Blown by the wind slowly scatters away. A Song Of Changgan My hair had hardly covered my forehead. I was picking flowers, paying by my door, When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse, Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums. We lived near together on a lane in Ch'ang-kan, Both of us young and happy-hearted. ...At fourteen I became your wife, So bashful that I dared not smile, And I lowered my head toward a dark corner And would not turn to your thousand calls; But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed, Learning that no dust could ever seal our love, That even unto death I would await you by my post And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching. ...Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey Through the Gorges of Ch'u-t'ang, of rock and whirling water. And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear, And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky. Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go, Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss, Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away. And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves. And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses And, because of all this, my heart is breaking And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade. ...Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts, Send me a message home ahead! And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance, All the way to Chang-feng Sha.

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