Chinese 323 Ascending Heights (2)Bao Zhao/Pao Chao (414-466)
"Ascend Lu Mountain"
Hanging luggage disturbs shadows in the water.
Our trip ends in a mountain house.
Blocking, piling up, a thousand cliffs rise.
Twisting, turning, descend a million valleys,
Imposing as antiquity itself.
Profuse, confused, one assumes the other's name.
From deep torrents, earth's veins can be seen.
Among spearing trees, sky's network is hidden.
Stone bridges reach into dense mist.
Cloud caves pour down the four directions.
Sombre ice is frozen in summer.
Flaming trees flourish in winter.
In the morning, the clamor of jungle-fowls.
At night, clear cries of monkeys.
Among steep precipices, traces of Transformation.
Upon the peaks, the lasting spirit.
To follow this delight in mountains' natures
And deep love for long excursions
We will mount upon the road of feathered men
And merge forever with smoke and mist.
(Wai-lim Yip, Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Major Modes and Genres, p.151)
Li Bo/Li Bai/Li Po (701-762)
"Viewing the Waterfall on Lu Mountain"
Heading west, I climb Incense Brazier Peak;
To the south, I see the waterfall:
Hanging flow of three hundred feet;
Roaring through dales for tens of miles.
Flashing like lightnings fly;
Surreptitious as a white rainbow rise.
At first I wonder if Milky Way has dropped
Sprinkling half of it in the clouds and the sky.
As I look up, its might increases--
Splendid is the power of Transformation!
Ocean winds blow in unceasingly,
The moon in the river returns the light to the sky.
In the skies are torrents rushing randomly;
Washing the green walls to the left and right.
Flying pearls scatter the thin mist:
Streaming bubbles spatter on the rocks!
Oh, I love this celebrated mountain,
Standing before it, my heart grows peaceful.
I do not need the jade-washing elixir
For cleasing my dusted face.
I will find a place I like for lodging
Ever parted from the world of men.
Meng Jiao/Meng Chiao (751-814)
"Trying To Climb Zhaocheng Temple Tower, But Not Making It to the Top: I Sigh in the Cell of My Nephew, the Monk 'Aware of the Void'"
I wanted to climb that thousand-stair tower
To ask Heaven a couple of things--
I hadn't even climbed twenty or thirty,
When heart and eyes blew like waves in the wind.
Hand after hand, clasping a frightened spirit,
Footstep after footstep tramples a falling soul,
Then back it flows into its former hand,
I clasp at my side, it's still on the point of slipping away.
Old and sick, I can only feel sorry for myself,
From ancient worms, a tree with a thousand scars.
How can I be proud of my old man's strength?--
It's only a single root of duckweed on autumn seas.
Lonely, decrepit, where shall I turn?
At daybreak my eyes are as if at twilight.
Always I fear I'll lose my firm footing,
And then down into the gate of well and market.
For feelings of kinship I have befriended this monk,
But my bamboo staff will be my descendants.
How intense this sincerity is and in vain,
For no purpose my will survives and survives.
Anyway, these words from only an inch on the earth--
How could High Heaven hear them.
(Stephen Owen, The Poetry of Meng Chiao and Han Yu, pp. 184-5)
Bo Juyi/Bai Juyi/Po Chu-i (772-846)
"Having Climbed to the Topmost Peak of the Incense-Burner Mountain"
Up and up, the Incense-Burner Peak!
In my heart is stored what my eyes and ears perceived.
All the year--detained by official business;
Today at last I got a chance to go.
Grasping the creepers, I clung to dangerous rocks;
My hands and feet--weary and groping for hold.
There came with me three or four friends,
But two friends dared not go further.
At last we meet the topmost crest of the Peak;
My eyes were blinded, my soul rocked and reeled.
The chasm beneath me--ten thousand feet;
The ground I stood on, only a foot wide.
If you have not exhausted the scope of seeing and hearing,
How can you realize the wideness of the world?
The waters of the River looked narrow as a ribbon,
P'en Castle smaller than a man's fist.
How it clings, the dust of the world's halter!
It chokes my limbs: I cannot shake it away.
Thinking of retirement, I heaved an envious sigh,
Then, with lowered head, came back to the Ants' Nest.
(Arthur Waley, 170 Chinese Poems, p. 148)
Su Shi/Su Shih (1037-1101)
"Climbing to the Guangli Pavilion at the Pinnacle of Mount Chang"
To the west one gazes on Muling Pass.
To the east one gazes on Langye Terrace.
To the south one gazes on Nine Immortals Mountain.
To the north one gazes on a sky of flying dust.
We would call out for Yu Shun,
And then return to Penglai.
Alas, we few--
Drinking extravagantly, we too are dissolute.
The red-skirts are about to depart as immortals.
And the long flutes will carry a lingering sorrow.
Their clear voices ascend to the clouds.
Dancing exquisitely, thin waists turn.
Since there has been this mountain,
Its white stone has been sealed with green moss.
When has there ever been a joy like this?
About to leave, I still linger.
Human life is like the morning dew.
White hairs press day and night.
Putting all aside, what ought one say?
After a thousand kalpas, the end is [just] flying dust.
(Michael Fuller, The Road to East Slope, p. 204)
Li Mengyang/Li Meng-yang (1473-1529)
"Spring Vista from the Tower of Illuminated Distance"
In the court of examinations they've opened a new tower:
cloudy spring day, I stand up here alone.
Along the willows, a thousand warship cluster;
among the flowers, ten thousand homes are thrown.
Wind-driven rain--the river's roar is strong;
troops with arms--the ground below looks cold.
Heart-breaking, sand geese to the north;
they rise in flocks, fly off toward Chang'an.
Li Kaixian/Li K'ai-hsien (1502-68)
"Drunk, Climbing to the Peak of Iron Tomb on Wei Mountain"
Grasping my flying cane, several feet of wood,
in an instance I am among the white clouds.
But my drunken eyes are hazy--I don't know where I am,
I think I'm going down the mountain when I'm really going up!
Xu Wei/Hsü Wei (1521-93)
"From Zhejiang I Went to Xin'an and Climbed Even-with-the-Clouds Mountain. On the Way Back There Were Many Beautiful Sights at the Inns Where I Stayed and Yet I Could Not Write One Word of Poetry. When I Got Back to the Main Road I Wrote These Four Lines to Make Fun of Myself."
I tethered my horse beside the plum blossoms and found wine to drink--
streams and mountains in the distance set off the flag of the wine shop.
Why is it whenever I come to a place which should be put in a poem
I cannot turn out a single word of poetry?
Tang Xianzu/T'ang Hsien-tsu (1550-1616)
"Descending the Ridge of Flying Clouds"
At the top of this ridge I could whistle happily.
Down at the bottom--I'm feeling depressed!
Looking back now at the thousand peaks:
there--the one lost in the clouds is Mount Lofu.