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21 Apr 2007 @ 23:43, by Vaxen Var
Nefarious War
Last year we fought by the head-stream of the Sang-kan,
This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho road.
We have washed our armor in the waves of Chiao-chi lake,
We have pastured our horses on Tien-shan's snowy slopes.
The long, long war goes on ten thousand miles from home,
Our three armies are worn and grown old.
The barbarian does man-slaughter, not plowing;
On this yellow sand-plains nothing has been seen but
blanched skulls and bones.
Where the Chin emperor built the walls against the Tartars,
There the defenders of Han are burning beacon fires.
The beacon fires burn and never go out,
There is no end to war!—
In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;
The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,
While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,
Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees.
So, men are scattered and smeared over the desert grass,
And the generals have accomplished nothing.
Oh, nefarious war! I see why arms
Were so seldom used by the benign sovereigns.
His Dream of the Skyland: A Farewell Poem
The seafarers tell of the Eastern Isle of Bliss,
It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves.
But the Sky-land of the south, the Yueh-landers say,
May be seen through cracks of the glimmering cloud.
This land of the sky stretches across the measures of heaven;
It rises above the Five Mountains and towers over the Scarlet Castle,
While, as if staggering before it, the Tien-tai Peak
Of many thousand feet leans toward the south and east.
So, longing to dream of the southlands of Wu and Yueh,
I flew across the Mirror Lake one night under the moon.
The moon in the lake followed my flight,
Followed me to the town of Yen-chi.
Here still stands the mansion of Prince Hsieh.
I saw the green waters curl and heard the monkeys' shrill cries.
I climbed, putting on the clogs of the prince,
Skyward on a ladder of clouds,
And, half-way up, from the sky-wall I saw the morning sun,
And heard heaven's cock crowing in the mid-air.
Now among a thousand precipices my way wound round and round;
Flowers choked the path; I leaned against a rock; I swooned.
Roaring bears and howling dragons roused me—
Oh, the clamorous waters of the rapids!
I trembled in the deep forest, and shuddered at the overhanging crags,
one heaped upon another.
Clouds on clouds gathered above, threatening rain;
The waters gushed below, breaking into mist.
A peal of blasting thunder!
The mountains crumbled.
The stone gate of the hollow heaven
Opened wide, revealing
A vasty realm of azure without bottom,
Sun and moon shining together on gold and silver palaces.
Clad in rainbow and riding on the wind,
The ladies of the air descended like flower flakes;
The faery lords trooping in, were thick as hemp-stalks in the fields.
Phoenix birds circled their cars, and panthers played on harps.
Bewilderment filled me, and terror seized on my heart.
I lifted myself in amazement, and alas!
I woke and found my bed and pillow—
Gone was the radiant world of gossamer.
So with all pleasures of life.
All things pass with the east-flowing water.
I leave you and go—when shall I return?
Let the white roe feed at will among the green crags,
Let me ride and visit the lovely mountains!
How can I stoop obsequiously and serve the mighty ones!
It stifles my soul.
===
A Vindication
If heaven loved not wine,
A Wine Star would not be in heaven;
If earth loved not wine,
The Wine Spring would not be on earth.
Since heaven and earth love wine,
Need a tippling mortal be ashamed?
The transparent wine, I hear,
Has the soothing virtue of a sage,
While the turgid is rich, they say,
As the fertile mind of the wise.
Both the sage and the wise were drinkers,
Why seek for peers among gods and goblins?
Three cups open the grand door to bliss;
Take a jugful, the universe is yours.
Such is the rapture found in wine,
That the sober shall never inherit.
===
Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly,
And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking.
Which was the real—the butterfly or the man ?
Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?
The water that flows into the depth of the distant sea
Returns in time to the shallows of a transparent stream.
The man, raising melons outside the green gate of the city,
Was once the Prince of the East Hill.
So must rank and riches vanish.
You know it, still you toil and toil—what for?
===
Above by: Li "Wiseguy" Po
===
Source
Adapted from The Works of Li Po, the Chinese Poet, done into English verse by Shigeyoshi
Obata. E. P. Dutton & Co, New York, 1922. This book contains translations of 124 of Li Po’s
poems, an extensive introduction to his work and the Tang period in which he lived, poems by
other poets concerning Li Po, and biographical notes on Li Po by Chinese authors.
Li Po
Li Po (701-762 CE) was a native of Sezchaun, China. He left home to live in the mountains with a religious recluse and then took up the occupation of wandering poet. Throughout his life he produced an abundance of poems on nature, wine, friendship, solitude, and the passage of time. He has since become recognized by many as the greatest of the highly talented array of Tang poets. In 742 his poetry found great favor at the imperial court. However, accusations of malicious satire caused him to retire to the mountains. He later becoming involved in a major revolt and was imprisoned under sentence of death, commuted to perpetual banishment. He was a poet who caught the nuances of the human experience of nature and of human friendship.
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Category: Violence, War
8 comments
22 Apr 2007 @ 07:39 by : Golden Orioles...
Remind me of...
http://www.chinese-poems.com/d29.gif
Two Golden Orioles...
Two golden orioles sing in the green willows,
A row of white egrets against the blue sky.
The window frames the western hills' snow of a thousand autumns,
At the door is moored, from eastern Wu, a boat of ten thousand li.
Da Fu
22 Apr 2007 @ 18:45 by : Of course...
I do realise that this might go over a lot of heads who've never been there but my hopes were that a few could take wing and understand the futility of the seeming eternity of war...
Da Fus' usage of the word "benign sovereigns" inspired me. It is my wish and fervent hope that the peoples of this world will give up tired government, dissolve all governments, save that of self-sovereign and enter the great way...
Becoming thus... one with us. Immortal.
RA
22 Apr 2007 @ 23:27 by hgoodgame : They should have sent a poet..
Offer them pearls and they will trample them into the mud. If it were not so.. it would not be the Tao.
The unimaginable beauty one sees from a distance and thru absence. ;)
Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Chinese Proverb
If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation.
Where there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.
Anonymous
23 Apr 2007 @ 01:44 by : Nice...
Very much inherent within the Chou Yi (Yi Qing or Book of Changes)...
The family being represented by the 8 trigrams gives a patterning for all of existence.
Thanks Heidelein for the inspiratzione...
25 Apr 2007 @ 16:40 by : Woa, Something Just Flew Over My Head
If I've been there, I'd know I've been there, right? But maybe I was duped into thinking I haven't been there...and actually I am there right now. How do you know when you're really in love?
Well...it's a strange, intangible thing, my boy, you see...
(Piano intro...)
I've never been in love before
Never knew the score...
I just felt something wet land on my head.
----
A robins' egg, perhaps? ;)
"Weve got the greatest story ever told, but no ones listening. The church has a problem communicating, and its time to change."
But now that youve found you dont have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to G'd telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way!
Ar n-Athair a tha air nèamh,
Gu naomhaichear d'ainm.
Thigeadh do rìoghachd.
Dèanar do thoil air an talamh,
mar a nìthear air nèamh.
Tabhair dhuinn an-diugh ar n-aran làitheil.
Agus maith dhuinn ar fiachan,
amhail a mhaitheas sinne dar luchd-fiach.
Agus na leig ann am buaireadh sinn;
ach saor sinn o olc:
oir is leatsa an rìoghachd,
agus an cumhachd,
agus a' glòir,
gu sìorraidh.
Amen
And if ya happen ta be in town, jazzolog, et al...
{http://www.highlandcathedral.org/index.php?section=home&page=1}
27 Apr 2007 @ 04:24 by : Nice stuff
All nice stuff.
Chop wood. Carry water.
---
Yes, sir, that's what I do...
Thanks bro, it's nice to see you back,
In the bush with us heathens...
Joi Vivre!
29 Apr 2016 @ 07:37 by @103.12.162.4 : brilliant! I would like to share this ar
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20 Aug 2016 @ 09:45 by @36.71.245.46 : teuing
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