Part 7

Ch`ang Ch`ien

Circa A.D. 720

One of the great philosopher-poets of the Taoist school. His life was spent far from the court and away from the sounds of civil warfare, in the endeavour to set himself in harmony with the universe -- to become, in fact, like an Aeolian harp through which all the cords of nature might sweep at will. How far he attained the end desired may be seen in his work, which is penetrated by a sense of profound beauty, recalling the quiet twilight upon the mountain-side, which he so well describes.

A Night on the Mountain

I sat upon the mountain-side and watched A tiny barque that skimmed across the lake, Drifting, like human destiny upon A world of hidden peril; then she sailed From out my ken, and mingled with the blue Of skies unfathomed, while the great round sun Weakened towards the waves. The whole expanse Suddenly in the half-light of the dusk Glimmered and waned. The last rays of the sun Lit but the tops of trees and mountain-peaks With tarnished glory; and the water's sheen, Once blue and bright, grew lustreless, and soon A welter of red clouds alone betrayed The passing of the sun. The scattered isles Uprose, black-looming o'er the tranquil deeps, Where the reflected heavens wanly showed A lingering gleam. Already wood and hill Sank in obscurity. The river marge Seemed but a broken line to failing sight.

. . . . .

Night is at hand; the night winds fret afar, The North winds moan. The waterfowl are gone To cover o'er the sand-dunes; dawn alone Shall call them from the sedges. Some bright star

Mirrors her charms upon the silver shoal; And I have ta'en the lute, my only friend: The vibrant chords beneath my fingers blend; They sob awhile, then as they slip control

Immortal memories awake, and the dead years Through deathless voices answer to my strings, Till from the brink of Time's untarnished springs The melting night recalls me with her tears.

Ts`en-Ts`an

Circa A.D. 750

Of his life we know little, save that he was the intimate friend of the great poet Tu Fu, and came of a noble family. He was, moreover, Censor under the Emperor Su Tsung (A.D. 756-762), and rose to be Governor of Chia-chou. What remains of his verse mostly takes the form of quatrains, yet for originality of thought, wealth of imagery and style, they have seldom been excelled. He was a master of metre, and contributed certain modifications to the laws of Chinese prosody which exist to the present day.

A Dream of Spring

Last night within my chamber's gloom some vague light breath of Spring Came wandering and whispering, and bade my soul take wing.

A hundred moonlit miles away the Chiang crept to sea; O keeper of my heart, I came by Chiang's ford to thee.

It lingered but a moment's space, that dream of Spring, and died; Yet as my head the pillows pressed, my soul had found thy side.

Oh! Chiang Nan's a hundred miles, yet in a moment's space I've flown away to Chiang Nan and touched a dreaming face.

Tu Fu

A.D. 712-770

Tu Fu, whom his countrymen called the God of Verse, was born in the province of Hu-Kuang, and this was his portrait from contemporaries:

He was tall and slightly built, yet robust with finely chiselled features; his manners were exquisite, and his appearance distinguished. He came of a literary family, and, as he says of himself, from his seventh to his fortieth year study and letter occupied all his available time. At the age of twenty-seven he came to the capital with his fame in front of him, and there Li Po the poet and Ts`en-Ts`an became his friends, and Ming Huang his patron. He obtained a post at Court somewhat similar to that of Master of Ceremonies in our own Court. Yet the poet had few sympathies outside the artistic life. He was so unworldly and so little of a courtier that when the new Emperor Su Tsung returned in triumph to the capital and appointed him Imperial Censor, he fulfilled his new duties by telling his majesty the whole unpalatable truth in a manner strangely free from ornamental apology, and was promptly rewarded with the exile of a provincial governorship. But Tu Fu was no man of affairs, and knew it. On the day of his public installation he took off his insignia of office before the astonished notables, and, laying them one by one on the table, made them a profound reverence, and quietly withdrew.

Like his friend Li Po, he became a homeless wanderer, but, unlike him, he concealed his brilliant name, obtaining food and patronage for his delightful nameless self alone, and not for his reputation's sake. Finally, he was discovered by the military governor of the province of Ssuch`uan, who applied on his behalf for the post of Restorer of Ancient Monuments in the district, the one congenial appointment of his life. For six years he kept his post; then trouble in the shape of rebel hordes burst once more upon the province, and again he became an exile. The last act of this eventful life took place in his native district: some local mandarin gave a great banquet in honour of the distinguished poet, whom he had rescued, half drowned and famishing, from the ruined shrine by the shore where the waters had cast him up. The wine-cup brimmed again and again, food was piled up in front of the honoured guest, and the attendant who waited was Death. The end was swift, sudden, and pitiful. The guest died from the banquet of his rescuer.

Of all poets Tu Fu is the first in craftsmanship. It is interesting to add that he was a painter as well, and the friend of painters, notably the soldier-artist, Kiang-Tu, to whom he dedicates a poem. Possibly it is to this faculty that he owes his superb technique. He seeks after simplicity and its effects as a diver seeks for sunken gold. In his poem called "The Little Rain", which I have (perhaps somewhat rashly) attempted, there is all the graciousness of fine rain falling upon sullen furrows, which charms the world into spring. "The Recruiting Sergeant" has the touch of grim desolation, which belongs inevitably to a country plundered of its men and swept with the ruinous winds of rebellion.

Li Po gives us Watteau-like pictures of life in Ch`ang-an before the flight of the Emperor. The younger poet paints, with the brush of Verestchagin, the realism and horrors of civil war. In most of Tu Fu's work there is an underlying sadness which appears continually, sometimes in the vein that runs throughout the poem, sometimes at the conclusion, and often at the summing up of all things. Other poets have it, some more, some less, with the exception of those who belong to the purely Taoist school. The reason is that the Chinese poet is haunted. He is haunted by the vast shadow of a past without historians -- a past that is legendary, unmapped and unbounded, and yields, therefore, Golcondas and golden lands innumerable to its bold adventurers. He is haunted from out the crumbled palaces of vanished kings, where "in the form of blue flames one sees spirits moving through each dark recess." He is haunted by the traditional voices of the old masters of his craft, and lastly, more than all, by the dead women and men of his race, the ancestors that count in the making of his composite soul and have their silent say in every action, thought, and impulse of his life.

The Little Rain

Oh! she is good, the little rain! and well she knows our need Who cometh in the time of spring to aid the sun-drawn seed; She wanders with a friendly wind through silent nights unseen, The furrows feel her happy tears, and lo! the land is green.

Last night cloud-shadows gloomed the path that winds to my abode, And the torches of the river-boats like angry meteors glowed. To-day fresh colours break the soil, and butterflies take wing Down broidered lawns all bright with pearls in the garden of the King.

A Night of Song