T.

ie Seeded Poems o
TRANSLATED BY DAVID HINTON
WINNER OF THE 1997 HAROLD MORTON LANDON TRANSLATION AWARD
>e ecleJ. R(oems o

0mm
 OTHER TRANSLATIONS BY

DAVID HINTON

The Mountain Poems of Hsieh Ling-yim (New Directions)

Tao Te Ching (Counterpoint)

The Selected Poems of Po Chii-I (New Directions)

The Analects (Counterpoint)

Mencius (Counterpoint)

Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters (Counterpoint)

The Late Poems of Meng Chiao (Princeton)

Forms of Distance [poems by Bei Dao] (New Directions)

Landscape Over Zero [poems by Bei Dao] (New Directions)

The Selected Poems of Tao Ch’ien (Copper Canyon)

The Selected Poems of Tu Fu (New Directions)

TLe SelecleJ R©ems ©

TRANSLATED BY

DAVID HINTON

A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK

Copyright © 1996 by David Hinton

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, maga-
zine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the Publisher.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The translation of this book was supported by grants from the National
Endowment for the Humanities and the Witter Bynner Foundation.

Some of these poems first appeared in The American Poetry Review.

Manufactured in the United States of America

New Directions Books are published on acid-free paper.
First published as New Directions Paperbook 823 in 1996
Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited
Book design and map by Sylvia Frezzolini Severance

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Li Po, d701-762
[Poems. English. Selections}
The selected poems of Li Po / translated by David Hinton,
p. cm.
“A New directions book.”
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8112-1323-3 ISBN-10j0-8112-1323-4
1. Li, Po, d701-762—Translations into English. I. Hinton,
David, 1954 - . II. Title.
PL2671.A25 1996
895.1' 13—dc20 96-5139
CIP

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

By New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY 10011

EIGHTH PRINTING
 CONTENTS

Map x
Introduction xi

EARLY YEARS (A.D.701-742)

GOING TO VISIT TAI-T’IEN MOUNTAIN’S MASTER ... 3

O-MEI MOUNTAIN MOON 4
AT CHING-MEN FERRY, A FAREWELL 5
GAZING AT THE LU MOUNTAIN WATERFALL 6
VISITING A CH’AN MASTER AMONG MOUNTAINS
AND LAKES 8
NIGHT THOUGHTS AT TUNG-LIN MONASTERY ... 9
SUNFLIGHT CHANT 10
WRITTEN ON A WALL AT SUMMIT-TOP TEMPLE 11
CH’ANG-KAN VILLAGE SONG 12
FAREWELL TO A VISITOR RETURNING EAST 14
ON YELLOW-CRANE TOWER, FAREWELL TO
MENG HAO-JAN ... 15
TO SEND FAR AWAY 16
HSIANG-YANG SONGS 17
SOMETHING SAID, WAKING DRUNK ... 18
AT YUAN TAN-CH’IU’S MOUNTAIN HOME 19
TO SEND FAR AWAY 20
AT FANG-CH’ENG MONASTERY, DISCUSSING CH’AN ... 22
WRITTEN WHILE WANDERING THE WHITE RIVER ... 23
WANDERING CH’ING-LING STREAM IN NAN-YANG 24
SONG OF THE MERCHANT 25
FRONTIER-MOUNTAIN MOON 26
A SUMMER DAY IN THE MOUNTAINS 27
LISTENING TO LU TZU-HSUN PLAY THE CH’IN ... 28
SPRING THOUGHTS 29
ANCIENT SONG 30
WAITING FOR WINE THAT DOESN’T COME 31
MOUNTAIN DIALOGUE 32
GAZING INTO ANTIQUITY AT SU TERRACE 33
GAZING INTO ANTIQUITY IN YUEH 34
AVOIDING FAREWELL IN A CHIN-LING WINESHOP 35
WANDERING T’AI MOUNTAIN 36

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755)

CH’ING P’ING LYRICS 41

JADE-STAIRCASE GRIEVANCE 42
DRINKING ALONE BENEATH THE MOON 43
THINKING OF EAST MOUNTAIN 46
TO SEND FAR AWAY 47
THOUGHTS OF YOU UNENDING 48
WANDERING UP LO-FU CREEK ON A SPRING DAY 49
ON HSIN-P’ING TOWER 50
WATCHING A WHITE FALCON SET LOOSE 51
SHANG MOUNTAIN, FOUR-RECLUSE PASS 52
SPRING GRIEVANCE 53
TEASING TU FU 54
AT SHA-CH’IU, SENT TO TU FU 55
AT SHA-CH’IU, FAREWELL TO WEI PA 56
SPUR OF THE MOMENT 57
WAR SOUTH OF THE GREAT WALL 58
DRINKING IN THE MOUNTAINS WITH A RECLUSE 60
SENT TO MY TWO CHILDREN IN SHA-CH’IU 61
IN THE STONE GATE MOUNTAINS ... 63
IMPROMPTU CHANT 64
WAR SOUTH OF THE GREAT WALL 65
FAREWELL TO YIN SHU 66

VI THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

CHING-T’ING MOUNTAIN, SITTING ALONE 67
AT HSUAN-CHOU, I CLIMB HSIEH T’lAO’S ... 68
AT HSIEH T’lAO’S HOUSE 69
HEAVEN’S-GATE MOUNTAIN 70
ON HSIEH T’lAO’S TOWER IN HSUAN-CHOU ... 71
MOURNING OLD CHI, HSUAN-CHOU’S ... 72
LISTENING TO A MONK’S CH’IN DEPTHS 73
MOURNING CHAO 74
DRUNK ON T’UNG-KUAN MOUNTAIN, A QUATRAIN 75
ON AUTUMN RIVER, ALONG PO-KO SHORES 76
AUTUMN RIVER SONGS 78
ON AUTUMN RIVER AT CLEAR CREEK ... 85
CLEAR CREEK CHANT 86
VISITING SHUI-HSI MONASTERY 87

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D.755-762)

ON PHOENIX TOWER IN CHIN-LING 91

AT CHIN-LING 92
ANCHORED OVERNIGHT AT NIU-CHU ... 93
AFTER AN ANCIENT POEM 94
WRITTEN ON A WALL AT HSIU-CHING MONASTERY. . . 95
DRINKING WITH SHIH LANG-CHUNG, I HEAR ... 96
9/9, OUT DRINKING ON DRAGON MOUNTAIN 97
9/10 GOINGS-ON 98
TRAVELING SOUTH TO YEH-LANG, SENT TO . . . 99
STARTING UP THREE GORGES 100
BEFORE MY BOAT ENTERS CH’U-T’ANG GORGE ... 101
MAKING MY WAY TOWARD YEH-LANG IN EXILE ... 103
LEAVING K’UEI-CHOU CITY EARLY 104
TRAVELING TUNG-T’ING LAKE WITH CHI A CHIH ... 105
AFTER CLIMBING PA-LING MOUNTAIN, IN THE
WEST HALL... 106
AT LUNG-HSING MONASTERY, CHI A AND I . . . 107

CONTENTS Vll
WRITTEN ON THE WALL WHILE DRUNK AT . . . 108
LOOKING LOR YUNG, THE RECLUSE MASTER 109
AFTER AN ANCIENT POEM 110
GAZING AT CRAB-APPLE MOUNTAIN 111
FACING WINE 112
DRINKING ALONE ON A SPRING DAY 113
A FRIEND STAYS THE NIGHT 115
SPENDING THE NIGHT BELOW WU-SUNG ... 116
FAREWELL TO HAN SHIH-YU WHO’S LEAVING ... 117
DRINKING ALONE 118
SEEING THAT WHITE-HAIRED OLD MAN ... 119
THOUGHTS IN NIGHT QUIET 120
LINES THREE, FIVE, SEVEN WORDS LONG 121
SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE, THINKING OF SPRING 122
ON GAZING INTO A MIRROR 123

Notes 124
Finding List 131
Bibliography 133

viii THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

 INTRODUCTION

I. THE WORK

There is a set-phrase in Chinese referring to the phe-

nomenon of Li Po: “Winds of the immortals, bones of
the Tao.” He is called the “Banished Immortal,” an
exiled spirit moving through this world with an unearth-
ly ease and freedom from attachment. But at the same
time, he belongs to earth in the most profound way, for
he is also free of attachments to self, and that allows the
self to blend easily into a weave of identification with
the earth and its process of change: the earth perpetual-
ly moving beyond itself as the ten thousand things
unfold spontaneously, each according to its own nature.
In Chinese, this unfolding is tzu-jan: literally “self-
so” or “being such of itself,” hence “natural” or “spon-
taneous.” Li Po’s work is suffused with the wonder of
being part of this process, but at the same time, he
enacts it, makes it visible in the self-dramatized spon-
taneity of his life. To live as part of the earth’s process of
change is to live one’s most authentic self: rather than
acting with self-conscious intention, one acts with self-
less spontaneity. This spontaneity is wu-wei (literally:
“doing nothing”), and it is an important part of Taoist
and Ch’an (Zen) practice, the way to experience one’s

xi
life as an organic part of tzu-jan. Educated Chinese had
always been imbued with Taoist philosophy, and Ch’an
had become very influential among the intellectuals of Li
Po’s time, many of whom associated with Ch’an monks
and spent time in Ch’an monasteries. Wu-wei was there-
fore a widely-held ideal, appearing most famously in
“wild-grass” calligraphy (begun by Chang Hsii and
Huai Su, friends of Li Po who would get drunk and, in
a sudden flurry, create a flowing landscape of virtually
indecipherable characters), in the antics of Ch’an mas-
ters, and in Li Po himself.
But for Li Po, it seems not so much a spiritual prac-
tice as the inborn form of his life, much of which was
spent wandering. As this was primarily wandering on
whim rather than traveling of necessity, it gives his life
the very shape of spontaneity: sailing downriver hun-
dreds of miles in a day or settling in one place for a year.
Li Po’s spontaneity also takes the form of wild drinking
and a gleeful disdain for decorum and authority, as in
the story where he fails to pay the proper respects when
being introduced to a governor and, upon being repri-
manded, quips: “Wine makes its own manners.” Li Po’s
poetry was itself often intended to shock his readers,
and he was considered outlandish by the decorous liter-
ary society of his time. But it was in another aspect of
his writing that Li Po embodies the principle of wu-wei
in a more fundamental way: the headlong movement of
the poem and its gestures. This movement is a natural
result of the spontaneous composition process which is
a major part of the Li Po legend. The story recurs in

Xll THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

many forms, perhaps most famously in Tu Fu’s “Song of
the Eight Immortals in Wine”:

For Li Po, it’s a hundred poems per gallon of wine,

then sleep in the winehouses of Ch’ang-an markets.

The most essential quality of Li Po’s work is the way

in which wu-wei spontaneity gives shape to his experi-
ence of the natural world. He is primarily engaged by
the natural world in its wild, rather than domestic
forms. Not only does the wild evoke wonder, it is also
where the spontaneous energy of tzu-jan is clearly visi-
ble, energy with which Li Po identified. And the sponta-
neous movement of a Li Po poem literally enacts this
identification, this belonging to earth in the fundamen-
tal sense of belonging to its processes.
Li Po wrote during the High T’ang period (A.D. 712-
760) when Chinese poetry blossomed into its first full
splendor, and he is one of the High T’ang’s three preem-
inent poets, Wang Wei and Tu Fu being the other two. A
major catalyst in the High T’ang revolution was admi-
ration for a poet who had been neglected since his death
three hundred years earlier: T’ao Ch’ien (365-427), the
poet of “fields and gardens.” Wang Wei, Li Po, and Tu
Fu are all direct heirs to T’ao Ch’ien’s resolute individu-
ality and authentic human voice. But Li Po is no less
heir to Hsieh Ling-yim (385-433), the poet of wild
“mountains and rivers.” Mountains were not merely
natural, but sacred objects. Quite literally sites where
the powers of heaven met those of earth, they were
inhabited and energized by those powers. Rivers formed

INTRODUCTION XIII
part of a single cosmic watershed. Beginning in western
mountains where the Star River (our Milky Way) descends
to earth, they flow east toward the sea, and there ascend
to become again the earth-cradling Star River. And togeth-
er “mountains and rivers” literally means “landscape,”
wild landscape as a truly numinous phenomenon.
The moon, though, absorbed the Banished Immortal
utterly. Appearing in over a third of his poems, it is a
beacon from his homeland. It’s difficult for us now to
imagine what the moon was for T’ang intellectuals, but
it was not in any sense the celestial body that we know.
In a universe animated by the interaction of yin (female)
and yang (male) energies, the moon was literally yin vis-
ible. Indeed, it was the very germ or source of yw, and
the sun was its yang counterpart. Like all other natural
phenomena, a person’s spirit was thought to be made up
of these two aspects. It took the form of two distinct
spirits: the yin spirit, which was called p’o and remained
earthbound at death, and the yang spirit, which was
called bun and drifted away into the heavens at death.
The moon, too, was known as p’o or yin-p’o. Hence, the
moon was the heavenly incarnation of, was indeed the
embryonic essence of that mysterious energy we call the
spirit (yin spirit, with the sun being the source of yang
spirit). This is the conceptual context within which Li
Po’s poems operate, the culture’s account of the moon’s
mystery. But rather than account for it, the poems them-
selves evoke it directly, evoke it and yet leave it as it is,
even now: an enduring mystery.
With the moon, inevitably, comes wine. Drinking

XIV THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

plays an important part in the lives of most Chinese
poets, acting as a form of enlightenment comparable to
Ch’an practice. But only T’ao Ch’ien is as closely iden-
tified with the “sage in the cup” as Li Po. Usually in
Chinese poetry, the practice of wine involves drinking
just enough so the ego fades and perception is clarified.
T’ao Ch’ien called this state “idleness” (hsien): ivu-ivei
as stillness. But although Li Po certainly cultivates such
stillness, he usually ends up thoroughly drunk, a state in
which he is released fully into his most authentic and
enlightened self: ivu-ivei as spontaneity.

During China’s T’ang Dynasty, a man named Li Po

is born in the year 701, at the beginning of the great cul-
tural flowering known as the High T’ang. He wanders.
The moon beckons from his homeland, dances with his
shadow. The river flows on the borders of heaven. He
meets Tu Fu in a country wineshop, and they share a few
days. Armies burn fields and cities. The T’ang smolders,
a fitful ruin. In 762, Li Po’s wandering ends south of the
Yangtze River, at someone else’s house, when he falls
into a river and drowns trying to embrace the moon.
The phenomenon of Li Po moves perpetually beyond the
everyday facts which make up a life. He belongs at once
to the realm of immortals and to the earth’s process of
change, its spontaneous movement beyond itself. But his
most enduring work remains grounded in the everyday
experience we all share. He wrote 1200 years ago, half
a world away, but in his poems we see our world trans-
formed by winds of the immortals, bones of the Tao.

INTRODUCTION XV
 II. THE LIFE

As with most immortals, the facts of Li Po’s existence

are nebulous. He was himself the ultimate source for
most of the biographical information we have, and with
his perpetual self-dramatization, he was a decidedly
unreliable source. Fortunately, few of the poems depend
on biographical context for their meaning. Although
many can be reliably dated, scholars have doubted the
authenticity of up to nine-tenths of the poems, making
the age-old attempts to guess at their dates especially
futile. In spite of the uncertainty, it has seemed best to
leave aside the question of authenticity and to arrange
the poems in some chronological order, however imagi-
nary that order may be. This is the only way to re-
embody the legend that Li Po is, and even if that legend
has little to do with historical fact, it is the Li Po that has
been revered for 1200 years.

Early Years (A.D.701-742)

Li Po’s life begins, suitably enough, nebulous and
beyond. He was born outside the boundaries of China,
in Central Asia, and his full given name was T’ai-po,
meaning “Venus.” His great-grandfather had apparent-
ly been exiled to Central Asia, and as they found them-
selves on the trading routes between China and the
West, the family may have turned to trading for a liveli-
hood. When Li Po was still young, the family moved to
Ch’ang-ming in western China, where they probably
continued their trading business. Wanting to create an

XVI THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

exotic aura for himself, Li Po promoted his Central
Asian background, which may indeed have been a com-
plete fabrication invented by a man of the lower mer-
chant class to give himself an aristocratic pedigree. He
claimed the same imaginary genealogy as the imperial
family (which also had Central Asian connections), a
genealogy reaching back to no less a figure than the
mythical Taoist philosopher Lao-tzu (whose family
name was Li). Still, evidence such as descriptions of his
strange and striking appearance suggest Li Po had much
Central Asian blood in him. Indeed, he may not have
been Chinese at all.
In any case, Li Po was accepted as part of the far-
flung and illustrious Li family, a “cousin” of imperial
princes. Most of his relatives were officials in govern-
ment, some of a fairly high rank. But even though he
showed considerable literary talent at a young age, he
never studied for the imperial examinations, though that
was the normal route to a career in government. If
indeed he was a Li, such a career would have been the
expected thing for him, the way to secure a place for
himself in the world. Instead, he spent some time as a
“knight-errant,” which involved avenging injustices suf-
fered by the helpless, and it is said that in this role he
killed several people with his sword. He also spent sev-
eral years as a Taoist recluse in the mountains near his
home. These two occupations are emblematic of Li Po’s
temperament: a deep and quiet spirituality on the one
hand, and on the other, a swaggering brashness.
Around A.D. 724, Li Po sailed out of Szechwan, his

INTRODUCTION XVII
remote home province in the west, and down the
Yangtze River to travel in eastern China. Some years
later, he was married and living in An-lu. This began a
decade of apparently settled life about which little is
known. By the late 730s, his wife and perhaps a son had
died, and Li Po had begun in earnest the wandering
which dominates his life. This wandering seems to have
been carefree, probably supported by the lucrative fam-
ily business and the relatives with whom he often stayed.

Ch’ang-an and Middle Years (A.D.742-755)

To be a poet in China meant little without a position in
the government, for that was the basic source of status
and self-esteem. So although Li Po was by now a famous
poet, he surely aspired to an official position, and he
could have hoped for an appointment outside the usual
examination system, on the basis of his extraordinary
literary abilities and/or his considerable Taoist expertise.
And in 742, through his friendship with a well-known
Taoist writer, he received an imperial summons which
took him to the capital, Ch’ang-an.
Ch’ang-an, with a population of two million, was
perhaps the most cultivated and cosmopolitan city in
human history, and T’ang civilization was at its peak.
Under Emperor Hsuan-tsung’s enthusiastic patronage,
arts and letters flourished. Indeed, his reign is often con-
sidered the pinnacle of Chinese cultural achievement.
The government’s frugality and devotion were leg-
endary; corruption was rare and taxation light. Able
generals secured the borders against ever-threatening

XVlll THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

“barbarians,” and within China there was peace and
prosperity.
Instead of receiving a position in the central govern-
ment as he must have hoped, Li Po was appointed to the
Han-lin Academy, becoming a court poet in attendance
on the emperor. His preternatural talents and bold dis-
dain for decorum and authority were a hit, and there are
numerous tales of his eccentric behavior in the capital.
As at any other time in his life, he was often to be found
in winehouses, carousing with courtesans. In a typical
story of Li Po’s exploits, the poet is summoned to cap-
ture the glory of an imperial outing and arrives dead
drunk. Attendants throw cold water in his face to rouse
him, and he thereupon tosses off a celebrated series of
poems. The full account of Li Po in Tu Fu’s “Song of the
Eight Immortals in Wine” contains another version of
this story:

For Li Po, it’s a hundred poems per gallon of wine,

then sleep in the winehouses of Ch’ang-an markets.

Summoned by the Son of Heaven, he can’t board the ship,

calls himself your loyal subject immortal in wine.

Indeed, it was at this time that he received the appella-

tion “Banished Immortal”: an immortal who had mis-
behaved and been sent to earth for punishment. But Li
Po’s irresponsible antics eventually resulted in his dis-
missal. Although just what happened is unclear, Li Po
was sent from the capital in 744.
He resumed his wandering, soon meeting Tu Fu in a

INTRODUCTION XIX
country wineshop near Lo-yang and traveling with him
briefly. Li Po had by now remarried, and the family,
which included a daughter and son, was settled at Sha-
ch’iu in eastern China. The following year, Tu Fu lived
briefly in the same region, and Li Po visited him. Tu Fu
is an important part of the Li Po legend. The two of
them are traditionally considered the greatest poets in
Chinese history, even if such claims are an exaggeration.
But this pairing is based on more than their shared pre-
eminence. They were friends, and their work is often
said to represent the two poles of Chinese sensibility: Li
Po being the Taoist (intuitive, amoral, detached), and Tu
Fu the Confucian (cerebral, moral, socially-engaged).
Informative though it may be, this contrast is a simplifi-
cation. To be a complete human being, a Chinese intel-
lectual must be both Taoist and Confucian, and this was
true of both Li Po and Tu Fu. In any case, the elder Li
Po was already quite famous when the two poets met,
and the as yet unknown Tu Fu admired him inordinate-
ly. But this was to be the last time the two poets would
meet. It seems Tu Fu quickly passed from Li Po’s mind.
Only two of Li Po’s surviving poems are addressed to Tu
Fu, both occasional poems dating from this period (and
typically, one is probably not authentic). But Tu Fu often
thought of Li Po, and over the years wrote more than a
dozen poems concerning him.
Li Po seems to have spent rather little time with his
family over the next decade. Instead, he continued to
wander eastern China in fine fashion, accompanied by
servants and courtesans. Meanwhile, China suffered

XX THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

several major military setbacks, and criticism of the
government’s expansionist policies grew. Between 750
and 754, there was an unprecedented series of natural
disasters which wreaked havoc upon the common peo-
ple. Although the government tried to provide disaster
relief, it was far from adequate, and popular resentment
grew. To make matters worse, the emperor’s obsessions
turned from art and government to magic elixirs of
immortality and his infamous consort, Yang Kuei-fei.
He left the affairs of state to a scheming and dangerous
prime minister, Li Lin-fu. One of Li Lin-fu’s many disas-
trous actions was to replace loyal military governors
whom he could not be certain of controlling with illiter-
ate barbarian generals. Soon, the emperor controlled
only the palace army directly, while foreign generals
with no real loyalty to the T’ang government controlled
vast autonomous armies and territories, setting what
should have been an all too obvious stage for the cata-
strophe soon to follow.

War, Exile, and Later Years (A.D.755-762)

An Lu-shan was the most powerful of these military
governors, controlling all of northeast China. Although
most people knew a rebellion was imminent, the self-
involved emperor would hear nothing of it, so loyal
forces were unprepared to defend the country. In
December of 755, An Lu-shan’s forces swept out of the
northeast and quickly captured Lo-yang, the eastern
capital, where An declared himself emperor of a new
dynasty. The following summer, he captured Ch’ang-an.

INTRODUCTION XXI
Both cities were sacked brutally, and the devastation
elsewhere was staggering.
Li Po fled to the south with his family and settled in
the Hsim-yang area. In 757, Li Po became the presiding
poet for a large force led by a certain Prince Lin, who
had been sent to lead government resistance in the
southeast. Eventually it became clear that the prince’s
true intention was to establish an independent regime in
the south, and government armies engaged him in Yang-
chou. His generals quickly abandoned him, as did Li Po,
and the prince was soon defeated and executed.
Li Po made his way back to Hsim-yang, but he was
there arrested as a traitor and jailed under sentence of
death. Although the imprisonment lasted several
months, he was finally exonerated. Not long afterwards,
however, a new administration in Hsim-yang took a dif-
ferent view of his involvement with Prince Lin. Li Po,
who was seriously ill, suddenly found himself banished
to Yeh-lang in the far southwest.
Li Po was allowed to make the journey into exile at
his leisure, and he made the best of it. He traveled up the
Yangtze slowly, stopping often to visit friends and rela-
tives. The chronology of Li Po’s exile is vague, but it
seems to have lasted about a year and a half. He even-
tually made the dangerous passage upstream through
Three Gorges to K’uei-chou, which the Chinese consid-
ered to be on the very outskirts of the civilized world.
The nearly impenetrable Wu Mountain complex which
surrounded the city was inhabited by aboriginal tribes
speaking dialects unintelligible to Han Chinese. Had Li

XXII THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

Po left K’uei-chou for Yeh-lang and the malarial south-
lands, he would have entered a true banishment.
Already sick, he would have expected to die there.
Fortunately, he was pardoned while staying at K’uei-
chou, and he promptly sailed back down the Yangtze to
resume his life of wandering, though it was hardly the
spontaneous and joyful wandering of his earlier years.
Indeed, for the last eight years of his life, beginning with
the outbreak of the An Lu-shan rebellion, Li Po wandered
more as a sick refugee and exile than a carefree romantic.
Rebel forces, which had been pushed back into the
northeast and seemed all but defeated, dealt government
forces several severe defeats and began regaining territo-
ry, including Lo-yang. Meanwhile, with the central gov-
ernment foundering, opportunists throughout China
began launching local revolts in the attempt to set up
independent regimes in their regions, and Li Po had to
flee several such revolts in his last years. Throughout
this period of fighting, Li Po hoped and petitioned for an
administrative position which would allow him to help
the government defend itself against the rebels. And yet,
in marked contrast to Tu Fu’s work, Li Po’s poetry
reveals little concern with the fighting or the tremendous
suffering it caused. The fall in census figures from 53
million before the fighting to only 17 million afterwards
summarizes the rebellion’s catastrophic impact. Of 53
million people, 36 million were left either dead or dis-
placed and homeless. And although the rebellion itself
ended in 763, the T’ang Dynasty never fully recovered
from it and the chronic militarism it spawned.

INTRODUCTION XX111
 In 762, a sick Li Po went to visit his “cousin” Li
Yang-ping, one of the great T’ang calligraphers. It was
the last in a lifetime of journeys. In the end, tzu-jan is the
form of loss. Li Po arrived at Li Yang-ping’s home with
a confusion of rough drafts which, being desperately ill,
he asked Li Yang-ping to edit and preserve. He had
managed to keep only a few hundred of the several
thousand poems he’d written, and these were in turn
soon lost. Another collection, of unknown origin, was
discovered and edited by Li Po’s friend, Wei Hao, but it
too was lost. Little is known about the history of these
texts, or what transformations they underwent, until
they were combined in a printed edition hundreds of
years later. Meanwhile, poems and manuscripts scat-
tered around the country were collected and edited, and
many of them were presumably included in the com-
bined edition, though no one knows how many were
actually written by Li Po. Of the several thousand
poems he is said to have written, the collection we now
have contains only about 1100, and only a portion of
these is authentic. So the large majority of Li Po’s work
was apparently lost, especially that written during the
difficult years of the rebellion. (Had this work survived,
Li Po might look a little more politically engaged than
he now does.) Combined with the dubious authenticity
of so many surviving poems and the lack of biographi-
cal information, this loss makes Li Po as much unknown
as known, as much legend as history.
It may be just as well, for the legend Li Po made of
himself is more consistent and compelling if he remains,

XXIV THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

like the moon, an enduring mystery. Whatever actually
happened at Li Yang-ping’s house in the winter of 762,
Li Po died as the legend says he died: out drunk in a
boat, he fell into a river and drowned trying to embrace
the moon.
—D.H.

INTRODUCTION XXV
EABEY YEARS
(A.D. 701-742)
GOING TO VISIT TAI-TTEN MOUNTAIN’S MASTER
OF THE WAY WITHOUT FINDING HIM

A dog barks among the sounds of water.

Dew stains peach blossoms. In forests,

I sight a few deer, then at the creek,

hear nothing of midday temple bells.

Wild bamboo parts blue haze. A stream

hangs in flight beneath emerald peaks.

No one knows where you’ve gone. Still,

for rest, I’ve found two or three pines.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 3

O-MEI MOUNTAIN MOON

O-mei Mountain moon half-full in autumn. Tonight,

its light filling the P’ing-ch’iang River current,

I leave Ch’ing-ch’i for Three Gorges. Thinking of you

without seeing you, I pass downstream of Yu-chou.

4 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

AT CHING-MEN FERRY, A FAREWELL

Crossing into distances beyond Ching-men,

I set out through ancient southlands. Here,

mountains fall away into wide-open plains,

and the river flows into boundless space.

The moon setting, heaven’s mirror in flight,

clouds build, spreading to seascape towers.

Poor waters of home. I know how it feels:

ten thousand miles of farewell on this boat.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 5

GAZING AT THE LU MOUNTAIN WATERFALL

Climbing west toward Incense-Burner Peak,

I look south and see a falls of water, a cascade

hanging there, three thousand feet high,

then seething dozens of miles down canyons.

Sudden as lightning breaking into flight,

its white rainbow of mystery appears. Afraid

at first the celestial Star River is falling,

splitting and dissolving into cloud heavens,

I look up into force churning in strength,

all power, the very workings of Creation.

It keeps ocean winds blowing ceaselessly,

shines a mountain moon back into empty space,

empty space it tumbles and sprays through,

rinsing green cliffs clean on both sides,

sending pearls in flight scattering into mist

and whitewater seething down towering rock.

Here, after wandering among these renowned

mountains, the heart grows rich with repose.

6 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

Why talk of cleansing elixirs of immortality?
Here, the world’s dust rinsed from my face,

I’ll stay close to what I’ve always loved,

content to leave that peopled world forever.

Sunlight on Incense-Burner kindles violet smoke.

Watching the distant falls hang there, river

headwaters plummeting three thousand feet in flight,

I see Star River falling through nine heavens.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 7

VISITING A CH’AN MASTER AMONG
MOUNTAINS AND LAKES

Like Hui-yuan fostering Ling-yim,

you open the gates of Ch’an for me:

here beneath rock and pine, serene,

it’s no different than Glacier Peak.

Blossoms pure, no dye of illusion,

mind and water both pure idleness,

I sit once and plumb whole kalpas,

see through heaven and earth empty.

8 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

NIGHT THOUGHTS AT TUNG-LIN MONASTERY
ON LU MOUNTAIN

Alone, searching for blue-lotus roofs,

I set out from city gates. Soon, frost

clear, Tung-lin temple bells call out,

Hu Creek’s moon bright in pale water.

Heaven’s fragrance everywhere pure

emptiness, heaven’s music endless,

I sit silent. It’s still, the entire Buddha-

realm in a hair’s-breadth, mind-depths

all bottomless clarity, in which vast

kalpas begin and end out of nowhere.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 9

SUNFLIGHT CHANT

Sun rises over its eastern harbor

as if coming from some underworld,
and crossing heaven, returns again to western seas,
nowhere its six sun-dragons could ever find rest.
It’s kept up this daily beginning and ending forever,
but we’re not made of such ancestral ch’i,
so how long can we wander with it here?

Flowers bloom in spring wind. They never refuse.

And trees never resent leaf-fall in autumn skies.
No one could whip the turning seasons along so fast:
the ten thousand things rise and fall of themselves.

Hsi Ho, O great

Sun Mother, Sun Guide— how could you drown
in those wild sea-swells of abandon?
And Lu Yang, by what power
halted evening’s setting sun?
It defies Tao, offends heaven—
all fake and never-ending sham.
I’ll toss this Mighty Mudball earth into a bag
and break free into that boundless birthchamber of it all!

10 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

WRITTEN ON A WALL AT SUMMIT-TOP TEMPLE

Staying the night at Summit-Top Temple,

you can reach out and touch the stars.

I venture no more than a low whisper,

afraid I’ll wake the people of heaven.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 11

CH’ANG-KAN VILLAGE SONG

These bangs not yet reaching my eyes,

I played at our gate, picking flowers,

and you came on your horse of bamboo,

circling the well, tossing green plums.

We lived together here in Ch’ang-kan,

two little people without suspicions.

At fourteen, when I became your wife,

so timid and betrayed I never smiled,

I faced wall and shadow, eyes downcast.

A thousand pleas: I ignored them all.

At fifteen, my scowl began to soften.

I wanted us mingled as dust and ash,

and you always stood fast here for me,

no tower vigils awaiting your return.

At sixteen, you sailed far off to distant

Yen-yii Rock in Ch’ii-t’ang Gorge, fierce

June waters impossible, and howling

gibbons called out into the heavens.

At our gate, where you lingered long,

moss buried your tracks one by one,

12 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

deep green moss I can’t sweep away.
And autumn’s come early. Leaves fall.

It’s September now. Butterflies appear

in the west garden. They fly in pairs,

and it hurts. I sit heart-stricken

at the bloom of youth in my old face.

Before you start back from out beyond

all those gorges, send a letter home.

I’m not saying I’d go far to meet you,

no further than Ch’ang-feng Sands.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 13

FAREWELL TO A VISITOR RETURNING EAST

Autumn rains ending in this river town,

and wine gone, your lone sail soars away.

Setting out across billows and waves, your

family settles back for the journey home

past islands lavish with blossoms ablaze,

willow filigree crowding in over the banks.

And after you’re gone, nothing left to do,

I go back and sweep off the fishing pier.

14 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

ON YELLOW-CRANE TOWER, FAREWELL TO MENG
HAO-JAN WHO’S LEAVING FOR YANG-CHOU

From Yellow-Crane Tower, my old friend leaves the west.

Downstream to Yang-chou, late spring a haze of blossoms,

distant glints of lone sail vanish into emerald-green air:

nothing left but a river flowing on the borders of heaven.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 15

TO SEND FAR AWAY

So much beauty home— flowers filled the house.

So much beauty gone— nothing but this empty bed,

your embroidered quilt rolled up, never used.

It’s been three years. Your scent still lingers,

your scent gone and yet never ending.

But now you’re gone, never to return,

thoughts of you yellow leaves falling,

white dew glistening on green moss.

16 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

HSIANG-YANG SONGS

In Hsiang-yang, pleasures abound. They play

Copper-Blond Horses, and we sing and dance.

But it’s a river town. Return to clear water,

and a blossoming moon bares our delusions.

Hsien Mountain rises above emerald Han River

waters and snow-white sand. On top, inscribed

to life’s empty vanishing, a monument stands,

long since blotted out beneath green moss.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 17

SOMETHING SAID, WAKING DRUNK
ON A SPRING DAY

It’s like boundless dream here in this

world, nothing anywhere to trouble us.

I have, therefore, been drunk all day,

a shambles of sleep on the front porch.

Coming to, I look into the courtyard.

There’s a bird among blossoms calling,

and when I ask what season this is,

an oriole’s voice drifts on spring winds.

Overcome, verging on sorrow and lament,

I pour another drink. Soon, awaiting

this bright moon, I’m chanting a song.

And now it’s over, I’ve forgotten why.

18 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

AT YUAN TAN-CH’IU’S MOUNTAIN HOME

By nature, my old friend on East Mountain

treasures the beauty of hills and valleys.

Spring now green, you lie in empty woods,

still sound asleep under a midday sun,

your robes growing lucid in pine winds,

rocky streams rinsing ear and heart clean.

No noise, no confusion— all I want is

this life pillowed high in emerald mist.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 19

TO SEND FAR AWAY

A woman alone here east of Ch’ung-ling

while you stay among Han River islands,

I look out across bright blossoms all day:

a lit path of white stretching between us.

We made clouds-and-rain love our farewell,

then nothing but autumn grasses remained,

autumn grasses and autumn moths rising,

and thoughts of you all twilight sorrow.

Will I ever see you again, ever darken

this lamp as you loosen my gauze robes?

20 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

2

Short and tall, spring grasses lavish

our gate with green, as if passion-driven,

everything returned from death to life.

My burr-weed heart— it alone is bitter.

You’ll know that in these things I see

you here again, planting our gardens

behind the house, and us lazily gathering

what we’ve grown. It’s no small thing.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 21

AT FANG-CH’ENG MONASTERY, DISCUSSING
CH’AN WITH YUAN TAN-CH’IU

Alone, in the vast midst of boundless

dream, we begin to sense something:

wind and fire stir, come whorling

life into earth and water, giving us

this shape. Erasing dark confusion,

we penetrate to the essential points,

reach Nirvana-illumination, seeing

this body clearly, without any fears,

and waking beyond past and future,

we soon know the Buddha-mystery.

What luck to find a Ch’an recluse

offering emerald wine. We seem lost

together here— no different than

mountains and clouds. A clear wind

opens pure emptiness, bright moon

gazing on laughter and easy talk,

blue-lotus roofs. Timeless longing

breaks free in a wandering glance.

22 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

WRITTEN WHILE WANDERING THE WHITE RIVER
IN NAN-YANG, AFTER CLIMBING ONTO THE ROCKS

Morning up near White River origins,

and suddenly that human world’s gone:

islands all ends-of-the-earth beauty,

river and sky a vast vacant clarity.

Ocean clouds leave the eye’s farewell,

and the mind idle, river fish wander.

Chanting, I linger out a setting sun,

then return moonlit to a farmland hut.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 23

WANDERING CH’ING-LING STREAM IN NAN-YANG

I hoard the sky a setting sun leaves

and love this cold stream’s clarity:

western light follows water away,

rippled current a wanderer’s heart.

I sing, watch cloud and moon, empty

song soon long wind through pine.

24 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

SONG OF THE MERCHANT

On heaven’s wind, a sea traveler

wanders by boat through distances.

It’s like a bird among the clouds:

once gone, gone without a trace.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 25

FRONTIER-MOUNTAIN MOON

Over Heaven Mountain, the bright moon

rises through a boundless sea of cloud.

A hundred thousand miles long, steady

wind scouring Jasper-Gate Pass howls.

Our armies moving down White-Ascent Road,

Mongols probing along Sky-Blue Seas—

soldiers never return from those forced

marches ending on battlefields. Countless

guards look out across moonlit borderlands,

thinking of home, their faces all grief.

And somewhere, high in a tower tonight,

a restless woman cries out in half-sleep.

26 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

A SUMMER DAY IN THE MOUNTAINS

Flourishing a white-feather fan

lazily, I go naked in green forests.

Soon, Tve hung my cap on a cliff,

set my hair loose among pine winds.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 27

LISTENING TO LU TZU-HSUN PLAY THE CHIN
ON A MOONLIT NIGHT

The night’s lazy, the moon bright. Sitting

here, a recluse plays his pale white ch’in,

and suddenly, as if cold pines were singing,

it’s all those harmonies of grieving wind.

Intricate fingers flurries of white snow,

empty thoughts emerald-water clarities:

No one understands now. Those who could

hear a song this deeply vanished long ago.

28 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

SPRING THOUGHTS

When grasses in Yen ripple like emerald silk

and lush mulberry branches sag in Ch’in,

he’ll still dream of coming home one day,

and I’ll still be waiting, broken-hearted.

We’re strangers, spring wind and I. Why is it

here, slipping inside my gauze bed-curtains?

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 29

ANCIENT SONG

Chuang-tzu dreams he’s a butterfly,

and a butterfly becomes Chuang-tzu.

All transformation this one body,

boundless occurrence goes on and on:

it’s no surprise eastern seas become

western streams shallow and clear,

or the melon-grower at Ch’ing Gate

once reigned as Duke of Tung-ling.

Are hopes and dreams any different?

We bustle around, looking for what?

30 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

WAITING FOR WINE THAT DOESN’T COME

Jade winejars tied in blue silk ....

What’s taking that wineseller so long?

Mountain flowers smiling, taunting me,

it’s the perfect time to sip some wine,

ladle it out beneath my east window

at dusk, wandering orioles back again.

Spring breezes and their drunken guest:

today, we were meant for each other.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 31

MOUNTAIN DIALOGUE

You ask why Eve settled in these emerald mountains,

and so I smile, mind at ease of itself, and say nothing.

Peach blossoms drift streamwater away deep in mystery:

it’s another heaven and earth, nowhere among people.

32 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

GAZING INTO ANTIQUITY AT SU TERRACE

Fresh willows among old gardens and overgrown terraces

clear song of chestnuts in wind: spring’s unbearable.

There’s nothing left now— only this West River moon

that once lit those who peopled the imperial Wu palace.

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 33

GAZING INTO ANTIQUITY IN YUEH

Kou Chien shattered Wu, then returned to his Yiieh kingdom.

Noble warriors home again boasting brocade robes, palace

women like blossoms filled springtime galleries here.

There’s nothing left now— only quail breaking into flight.

34 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

AVOIDING FAREWELL IN A CHIN-LING WINESHOP

Breezes filling the inn with willow-blossom scents,

elegant girls serve wine, enticing us to try it.

Chin-ling friends come to see me off, I try to leave

but cannot, so we linger out another cup together.

I can’t tell anymore. Which is long and which short,

the river flowing east or thoughts farewell brings on?

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701-742) 35

WANDERING T’AI MOUNTAIN

In May, the imperial road level stone

setting out, I ascend T’ai Mountain.

A six-dragon sun crossing ten thousand

ravines, valley streams meandering away,

I leave horse tracks winding through

emerald peaks all green moss by now,

water bathing cliffs in spray, cascades

headlong in flight. Among wailing pines,

I gaze north at wild headwalls, tilting

rock crumbling away east, and over

stone gates standing closed, lightning

storms rise from the bottom of earth.

Higher up, I see islands of immortals,

sea-visions all silver and gold towers,

and on Heaven’s Gate, chant devotions.

A pure ten-thousand-mile wind arrives,

and four or five jade goddesses come

drifting down from the nine distances.

Smiling, they entice me empty-handed,

pour out cup-loads of dusk-tinted cloud.

36 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

I bow, then bow again, deeper, ashamed
I haven’t an immortal’s talent. And yet,

boundless, I can dwindle time and space

away, losing the world in such distances!

EARLY YEARS (A.D. 701 -742) 37

 CH’ANG-AN
AND MIDDLE YEARS
(A.D. 742-755)
CH’ING P’ING LYRICS

Waking in the gallery

at dawn, and told it’s snowing,

I raise the blinds and gaze into pure good fortune.

Courtyard steps a bright mirage of distance,

kitchen smoke trails light through flurried skies,

and the cold hangs jewels among whitened grasses.

Must be heaven’s immortals in a drunken frenzy,

grabbing cloud and grinding it into white dust.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 41

JADE-STAIRCASE GRIEVANCE

Night long on the jade staircase, white

dew appears, soaks through gauze stockings.

She lets down crystalline blinds, gazes out

through jewel lacework at the autumn moon.

42 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

DRINKING ALONE BENEATH THE MOON

Among the blossoms, a single jar of wine.

No one else here, I ladle it out myself.

Raising my cup, I toast the bright moon,

and facing my shadow makes friends three,

though moon has never understood wine,

and shadow only trails along behind me.

Kindred a moment with moon and shadow,

Eve found a joy that must infuse spring:

I sing, and moon rocks back and forth;

I dance, and shadow tumbles into pieces.

Sober, we’re together and happy. Drunk,

we scatter away into our own directions:

intimates forever, we’ll wander carefree

and meet again in Star River distances.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 43

2

Surely, if heaven didn’t love wine,

there would be no Wine Star in heaven,

and if earth didn’t love wine, surely

there would be no Wine Spring on earth.

Heaven and earth have always loved wine,

so how could loving wine shame heaven?

I hear clear wine called enlightenment,

and they say murky wine is like wisdom:

once you drink enlightenment and wisdom,

why go searching for gods and immortals?

Three cups and I’ve plumbed the great Way,

a jarful and I’ve merged with occurrence

appearing of itself. Wine’s view is lived:

you can’t preach doctrine to the sober.

44 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

3

It’s April in Ch’ang-an, these thousand

blossoms making a brocade of daylight.

Who can bear spring’s lonely sorrows, who

face it without wine? It’s the only way.

Success or failure, life long or short:

our fate’s given by Changemaker at birth.

But a single cup evens out life and death,

our ten thousand concerns unfathomed,

and once I’m drunk, all heaven and earth

vanish, leaving me suddenly alone in bed,

forgetting that person I am even exists.

Of all our joys, this must be the deepest.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 45

THINKING OF EAST MOUNTAIN

It’s forever since I faced East Mountain.

How many times have roses bloomed there,

or clouds returned, and thinned away,

a bright moon setting over whose home?

46 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

TO SEND FAR AWAY

Far away, I think of Wu Mountain light,

blossoms ablaze and a clear warm river.

Still here, something always keeping me

here, I face clouded southlands in tears.

Heartless as ever, spring wind buffeted

my dream, and your spirit startled away.

Unseen, you still fill sight. News is brief,

and stretching away, heaven never ends.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 47

THOUGHTS OF YOU UNENDING

Thoughts of you unending

here in Ch’ang-an,

crickets where the well mirrors year-end golds cry out

autumn, and under a thin frost, mats look cold, ice-cold.

My lone lamp dark, thoughts thickening, I raise blinds

and gaze at the moon. It renders the deepest lament

empty. But you’re lovely as a blossom born of cloud,

skies opening away all bottomless azure above, clear

water all billows and swelling waves below. Skies endless

for a spirit in sad flight, the road over hard passes

sheer distance, I’ll never reach you, even in dreams,

my ruins of the heart,

thoughts of you unending.

48 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

WANDERING UP LO-FU CREEK ON A SPRING DAY

At the canyon’s mouth, I’m singing. Soon

the path ends. People don’t go any higher.

I scramble up cliffs into impossible valleys,

and follow the creek back toward its source.

Up where newborn clouds rise over open rock,

a guest come into wildflower confusions,

I’m still lingering on, my climb unfinished,

as the sun sinks away west of peaks galore.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 49

ON HSIN-P’ING TOWER

On this tower as I leave our homeland,

late autumn wounds thoughts of return,

and heaven long, a setting sun far off,

this cold clear river keeps flowing away.

Chinese clouds rise from mountain forests;

Mongol geese on sandbars take flight.

A million miles azure pure— the eye

reaches beyond what ruins our lives.

50 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

WATCHING A WHITE FALCON SET LOOSE

High in September’s frontier winds, white

brocade feathers, the Mongol falcon flies

alone, a flake of snow, a hundred miles

some fleeting speck of autumn in its eyes.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 51

SHANG MOUNTAIN, FOUR-RECLUSE PASS

Hair white, four old sages cragged high

and timeless as South Mountain itself,

bitterly sure among cloud and pine:

they’re hidden deep, unrecognizable

here. Azure sky a cloud-swept window,

cliffwalls all kingfisher blue across:

dragons and tigers at war in the world

still, of themselves, come to rest here.

Ch’in losing the Way’s bright mirror,

Han ascending into purple heavens:

when the sun’s lost in rainbow shadow,

North Star following it into obscurity,

the sage spreads wings toward flight,

helping sun and moon light our world.

However venerable, they’re gone now:

open scrolls on chests, darkness become

the source of change, untold darkness

gone vast and deep. The sounds of flight

fill heaven’s highway. I look up into

traces all boundless antiquity leaves.

52 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

SPRING GRIEVANCE

On a white horse bridled in gold, I go east of Liao-hai,

spread embroidered quilts, fall asleep in spring winds.

The moon sets, lighting my porch, probing dark lamps.

Blossoms drift through the door, smile on my empty bed.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 53

TEASING TU FU

Here on the summit of Fan-k’o Mountain, it’s Tu Fu

under a midday sun sporting his huge farmer’s hat.

How is it you’ve gotten so thin since we parted?

Must be all those poems you’ve been suffering over.

54 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

AT SHA-CH’IU, SENT TO TU FU

Now that I’ve come here, I wonder why.

This Sha-ch’iu life’s lazy and carefree,

but in ancient trees near the city wall,

sounds of autumn still swell at evening.

Wine here never gets me drunk. And if

local songs rekindle a feeling, it’s empty.

My thoughts of you are like the Wen River,

sent broad and deep on its journey south.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755)

AT SHA-CH’IU, FAREWELL TO WEI PA
WHO’S LEAVING FOR THE WESTERN CAPITAL

You arrived, a traveler from Ch’ang-an,

and now, returning there, you leave.

Headlong wind carries my thoughts away,

filling trees there in the western capital,

uneasy. There’s no saying how this feels,

or if we’ll ever meet again. I look far

without seeing you-— look, and it’s all

mist-gathered mountains opening away.

56 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

SPUR OF THE MOMENT

Facing wine, I missed night coming on

and falling blossoms filling my robes.

Drunk, I rise and wade the midstream moon,

birds soon gone, and people scarcer still.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 57

WAR SOUTH OF THE GREAT WALL

War last year at the Sang-kan’s headwaters,

war this year on the roads at Ts’ung River:

we’ve rinsed weapons clean in T’iao-chih sea-swells,

pastured horses in T’ien Mountain’s snowbound grasses,

war in ten-thousand-mile campaigns

leaving our Three Armies old and broken,

but the Hsiung-nu have made slaughter their own

version of plowing.
It never changes: nothing since ancient times but
bleached bones in fields of yellow sand.

A Ch’in emperor built the Great Wall to seal Mongols out,

and still, in the Han, we’re setting beacon fires ablaze.

Beacon fires ablaze everlasting,

no end to forced marches and war,

it’s fight to the death in outland war,

wounded horses wailing, crying out toward heaven,

hawks and crows tearing at people,

lifting off to scatter dangling entrails in dying trees.

58 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

Tangled grasses lie matted with death,
but generals keep at it. And for what?

Isn’t it clear that weapons are the tools of misery?

The great sages never waited until the need
for such things arose.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 59

DRINKING IN THE MOUNTAINS WITH A RECLUSE

Drinking together among mountain blossoms, we

down a cup, another, and yet another. Soon drunk,

I fall asleep, and you wander off. Tomorrow morning

if you think of it, grab your ch’in and come again.

60 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

SENT TO MY TWO CHILDREN IN SHA-CH’IU

Here in Wu, mulberry leaves lush green,

silkworms have already slept three times.

My family’s stayed behind in Sha-ch’iu,

no one to plant Kuei Mountain fields,

no one to do spring work, and here I am

wandering rivers, more and more dazed.

A south wind carries my heart back, its

flight coming to rest outside the upstairs

drinking-room, where a lone peach stands,

branches in leaf sweeping azure mist.

I planted it there before leaving them,

and now three years have slipped away:

it’s already reached the upstairs windows,

but my travels haven’t brought me back.

Our darling P’ing-yang picks blossoms

and leans against it, picks blossoms

and looks for a father she can’t see,

her tears flowing the way springs flow.

And how fast he’s grown— little Po-ch’in

standing shoulder-high to his big sister!

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 61

My two kids under that peach together—
who comforts them with loving hugs now?

The sense of things blank, grief burning

through me day after day, I measure out

silk and write these far-away thoughts

sent traveling the Wen-yang River home.

62 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

IN THE STONE GATE MOUNTAINS, GONE LOOKING
FOR YUAN TAN-CH’IU

No plans to go looking for such solitude,

I set out on a whim, never mind distance.

Hiking up through boundless cliffs hard,

broad daylight’s fading away in no time,

and before I pass three or four mountains,

the path’s taken a million twists and turns.

In silence, deep silence, a gibbon shrieks.

I walk on and on, watching clouds build,

then a perfect moon clears towering pines,

opening autumn clarity into an empty valley.

There’s still old snow in ravines up here,

and cold streams begin among broken rock.

Countless peaks deep in heaven, I climb on,

gazing into them, but they’re inexhaustible.

Then Tan-ch’iu calls out in these distances,

and spotting me, breaks into a sudden smile.

Watchful, I cross into this valley, seeing

in it the ease you’ve mastered in stillness,

and soon we’re lingering out ageless night,

leaving talk of return for clear dawn light.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 63

IMPROMPTU CHANT

Dinner brings the savor of country fields,

and serving wine, we pour distant waters.

Watching the river flow east inexhaustibly

here, we can see how this farewell feels.

64 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

WAR SOUTH OF THE GREAT WALL

Delirium, battlefields all dark and delirium,

convulsions of men swarm like armies of ants.

A red wheel in thickened air, the sun hangs

above bramble and weed blood’s dyed purple,

and crows, their beaks clutching warrior guts,

struggle at flight, grief-glutted, earthbound.

Those on guard atop the Great Wall yesterday

became ghosts in its shadow today. And still,

flags bright everywhere like scattered stars,

the slaughter keeps on. War-drums throbbing:

my husband, my sons— you’ll find them all

there, out where war-drums keep throbbing.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 65

FAREWELL TO YIN SHU

We drink deeply beneath dragon bamboo,

our lamp faint, the moon cold again.

On the sandbar, startled by drunken song,

a snowy egret lifts away past midnight.

66 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

CHING-T’ING MOUNTAIN, SITTING ALONE

The birds have all vanished into deep

skies. The last cloud drifts away, aimless.

Inexhaustible, Ching-t’ing Mountain and I

gaze at each other, it alone remaining.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755)

AT HSUAN-CHOU, I CLIMB HSIEH T’lAO’S
NORTH TOWER IN AUTUMN

This river town could be in a painting:

mountains at dusk, clear-sky views empty.

Two rivers inscribing a lit inlay of mirror,

a pair of fallen rainbows for bridges,

kitchen-smoke veins cold orange groves,

and autumn stains ancient wu-tung trees.

Who’ll remember someone facing wind

on North Tower, thinking of Hsieh T’iao?

68 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

AT HSIEH TTAO’S HOUSE

A lingering, Ch’ing Mountain sun sinks.

It’s all silence at Hsieh T’iao’s home now:

sounds of people among bamboo gone,

the moon mirrored white in a pool empty.

Dry grasses fill the deserted courtyard.

Green moss shrouds the forgotten well.

Nothing stirs but the clarity of breezes

playing mid-stream across water and stone.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 69

HEAVEN’S-GATE MOUNTAIN

Mountains set apart over the river,

two peaks face each other. Reflecting

chill colors of shoreline pine, waves

shatter apart into rock-torn bloom.

Heaven’s distant borders ragged, haze

beyond clear sky and flushed cloud,

the sun sinks, a boat far off leaving

as I turn my head, deep in azure mist.

70 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

ON HSIEH T’lAO’S TOWER IN HSUAN-CHOU: A FAREWELL
DINNER FOR SHU YUN

Leaving our departures behind, yesterday’s

sunlight is light I couldn’t hold back,
and throwing my heart into confusion, today’s
sunlight is light bringing tangled sorrows.

Facing ten-thousand-mile winds, autumn geese leaving,

we can still laugh and drink in this tower tonight,

chant poems of Immortality Land, ancient word-bones.

The clarity of Hsieh T’iao reappears here among us:

all embracing, thoughts breaking free into flight,

we ascend azure heaven, gaze into a bright moon.

But slice water with a knife, and water still flows,

empty a winecup to end grief, and grief remains grief.

You never get what you want in this life, so why not
shake your hair loose on a boat at play in dawn light?

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 71

MOURNING OLD CHI, HSUAN-CHOU’S
MASTER WINEMAKER

Down there in graveland, old Chi

goes on making his Old Spring wine.

Dawn never cuts night short there,

but who comes to buy your wine now?

72 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

LISTENING TO A MONK’S CH’IN DEPTHS

Carrying a ch’in cased in green silk, a monk

descended from O-mei Mountain in the west.

When he plays, even in a few first notes,

I hear the pines of ten thousand valleys,

and streams rinse my wanderer’s heart clean.

Echoes linger among temple frost-fall bells,

night coming unnoticed in emerald mountains,

autumn clouds banked up, gone dark and deep.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755)

MOURNING CHAO

Chao left our imperial city for his Japanese homeland,

a lone flake of sail. Now he wanders islands of immortals.

Foundering in emerald seas, a bright moon never to return

leaves white, grief-tinged clouds crowding our southlands.

74 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

DRUNK ON T’UNG-KUAN MOUNTAIN, A QUATRAIN

I love this T’ung-kuan joy. A thousand

years, and still I’d never leave here.

It makes me dance, my swirling sleeves

sweeping all Five-Pine Mountain clean.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 75

ON AUTUMN RIVER, ALONG PO-KO SHORES

Where could evening wandering be so fine?

Here along Po-ko shores, the moon bright,

mountain light trembles on drifted snow,

and gibbon shadow hangs from cold branches.

Only when this exquisite light dies away,

only then I turn my oars and start back.

When I came, it was such bright clear joy.

Now, it’s all these thoughts of you again.

76 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

2

In the Po-ko night, a long wind howls.

Streams and valleys turn suddenly cold.

Fish and dragons roaming shoreline waters,

billows surge and waves swell everywhere.

Though heaven’s loaned its moon, bright

moon come soaring over emerald clouds,

I can’t see my old home anywhere. Heart-

stricken, I face west and look and look.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 77

AUTUMN RIVER SONGS

Long like autumn, all desolate silence,

Autumn River will return you to sorrow.

Unable to gauge this wanderer’s sorrow,

I climb Ta-lou Mountain to the east

and gaze west into Ch’ang-an distances.

Looking down at the river flowing past,

I call out to its waters: So bow is it

you’ll remember nothing of me, and yet

you’d carry this one handful of tears

so very far— all the way to Yang-cbou?

78 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

2

Autumn River’s white gibbons seem countless,

a dancing flurry of leaps, snowflakes flying:

coaxing kids out of the branches, they descend,

and in a frolic, drink at the moon in water.

Wandering Autumn River in sorrow, I gaze into

Autumn River blossoms fiercely. Soon, it rivals

Yen-hsien for lovely mountains and streams,

and for wind and sun, it’s another Ch’ang-sha.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 79

4

Of these thousand-fold Autumn River peaks,

Waterwheel Mountain’s unrivaled: heaven

tipped over, rock nearly pouring down,

and the water sweeps trees clean of moss.

There’s a flake of rock on Chiang-tzu Peak,

a painted screen azure heaven sweeps clean.

The poem inscribed here keeps all boundless

antiquity alive— green words in moss brocade.

80 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

6

A million rock-cedars spread away here,

a hundred million stands of privet trees,

and white egrets fill endless mountains.

But white gibbons on stream after stream

howl. Stay away from Autumn River:

gibbon cries shatter a wanderer’s heart.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 81

7

Sentinel Rock mid-stream at Bird-Path Mountain,

Ancestor River appearing at Angler Bridge—

in wild water, the boat flies downstream,

mountain-flower scents rinsing my face clean.

The river’s a bolt of bleached silk,

and earth stretches away into heaven.

I can ride bright moonlight, ascend

on this wine-boat, gazing at blossoms.

82 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

9

The pellucid moon in crystalline water

brightening, a snowy egret takes flight.

He heard her gathering chestnuts. Singing

in the night, they share the road home.

10

Smelter fires light up heaven and earth,

red stars swirling through purple smoke.

In the moonlit night, men’s faces flushed,

worksong echoes out over the cold river.

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 83

11

Thirty thousand feet of white hair

It seems grief began that long ago,

and yet, in the bright mirror I wonder

where all this autumn frost came from.

12

Hardly ashore at Clear Creek, I hear it:

clarity, a voice of such perfect clarity.

At dusk, in farewell to a mountain monk,

I bow in deep reverence to white cloud.

84 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

ON AUTUMN RIVER AT CLEAR CREEK, FACING
WINE IN THE SNOWY NIGHT: ONE OF US CAN
CALL OUT IN PARTRIDGE SONG

Loosening my sable cloak, I face

white-jade winejars. Snowflakes

melt into our wine, and suddenly

it seems night cold isn’t so cold.

A visitor here from Kuei-yang

calls mountain partridge. Clear

wind rustles bamboo at the window.

Peacock cries start breaking out.

This is music enough. Why tell

flutes and pipes our troubles?

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 85

CLEAR CREEK CHANT

It renders the mind clear— Clear Creek,

its water unrivaled for such pure color.

I can gaze into the bottom of its always

fresh repose. Is there anything like this

brilliant mirror in which people walk?

It’s a wind-painting birds cross through,

and at nightfall, shrieking monkeys leave

all lament over distant wandering empty.

86 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

VISITING SHUI-HSI MONASTERY

Heaven Temple, Shui-hsi Monastery:

east wall lit beneath cloud brocade,

sounds of a clear stream tumbling past,

green bamboo harboring tower rooms.

The day unfettered under a cool wind,

we recluse guests mostly take it easy:

we think of sable-fur robes, chat about

autumn frost-fall, though it’s only June,

old rock vines spreading, new leaves

opening on shoreline bamboo-shoots.

Chanting lazily, heart growing empty,

you think of all this and write lovely

lines. Everyone admires your poems,

rhymes floating boundless and clear.

Come here just this once, how is it I’m

content in Snow Mountain’s answer?

CH’ANG-AN AND MIDDLE YEARS (A.D. 742-755) 87

 WAR, EXILE,
AND LATER YEARS
(A.D. 755-762)
ON PHOENIX TOWER IN CHIN-LING

In its travels, the phoenix stopped at Phoenix Tower,

but soon left the tower empty, the river flowing away.

Blossoms and grasses burying the paths of an Wu palace,

Chin’s capped and robed nobles all ancient gravemounds,

the peaks of Triple Mountain float beyond azure heavens,

and midstream in open waters, White-Egret Island hovers.

It’s all drifting clouds and shrouded sun. Lost there,

our Ch’ang-an’s nowhere in sight. And so begins grief.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 91

AT CHIN-LING

Tucked into the earth, Chin-ling City,

the river curving past, flowing away:

there were once a million homes here,

and red towers along narrow lanes.

A vanished country all spring grasses

now, the palace buried in ancient hills,

this moon remains, facing the timeless

island across Hou Lake waters, empty.

92 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

ANCHORED OVERNIGHT AT NIU-CHU, THINKING
OF ANCIENT TIMES

On West River at Niu-chu, night comes

all deep blue heavens, no trace of cloud.

From our boat, I watch the autumn moon,

hopes that Hsieh An’s army will rescue

China empty. However immortal my song,

he’d never hear it, never come. At dawn,

we’ll raise our sails into wind, sunlit

maple leaves falling and scattering away.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 93

AFTER AN ANCIENT POEM

Years turn suddenly. Frost thickening

on Mongol winds, heaven and earth

converge. Grasslands facing a winter

moon dead, the six-dragon sun falls

beyond western wastes. Comets scatter

ethereal light. Venus rises in the east.

And somehow we’ve flown to safety here,

a pair of ducks in foreign southlands.

In the old days, it was falcons and dogs

for killing, now it’s dukes and kings,

flood-dragons roaming all our waters,

fighting for ponds, seizing phoenixes—

and Northern Dipper never pours wine,

nor Southern Winnow fill with grain.

94 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

WRITTEN ON A WALL AT HSIU-CHING
MONASTERY IN WU-CH’ANG

Now a monastery on southern river-banks,

this was once my northern kinsman’s home.

There’s no one like him now. Courtyards

empty, monks sit deep in temple silence.

His books remain, bound in ribbon-grass,

and white dust blankets his ck’in stand.

He lived simply, planting peach and plum,

but in nirvana, springtime never arrives.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762)

DRINKING WITH SHIH LANG-CHUNG, I HEAR A FLUTE
ON YELLOW-CRANE TOWER SING

Leaving Wu-ch’ang alone, an exile sent wandering away,

I gaze west toward Ch’ang-an, home nowhere in sight.

On Yellow-Crane Tower, there’s a jade-pure flute singing

in this river town, this fifth month, Plum Blossoms Falling.

96 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

9/9, OUT DRINKING ON DRAGON MOUNTAIN

9/9, out drinking on Dragon Mountain,

I’m an exile among yellow blossoms smiling.

Soon drunk, I watch my cap tumble in wind,

dance in love— a guest the moon invites.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762)

9/10 GOINGS-ON

Yesterday was our grand scale-the-heights day,

and this morning I’m tipping the cup again.

Poor chrysanthemum. No wonder you’re so bitter,

suffering our revels these two days straight.

98 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

TRAVELING SOUTH TO YEH-LANG, SENT TO
MY WIFE IN YtJ-CHANG

This separation hurts, and Yeh-lang is beyond sky.

Moonlight fills the house, but news never comes.

I watched geese disappear north in spring, and now

they’re coming south, but no letter from Yii-chang.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 99

STARTING UP THREE GORGES

Azure heaven pinched between Wu Mountains,

riverwater keeps streaming down like this,

and with riverwater cascading so suddenly

away, we’ll never reach that azure heaven.

Three mornings we start up Huang-niu Gorge,

and three nights find we’ve gone nowhere.

Three mornings and three nights: for once

I’ve forgotten my hair turning white as silk.

100 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

BEFORE MY BOAT ENTERS CH’U-T’ANG GORGE
AND I LEAVE EASTERN PA BEHIND, I CLIMB
THE HIGHEST WU MOUNTAIN PEAK. RETURNING
LATE, I WRITE THIS ON A WALL

After traveling thousands of river miles,

a sea-born moon rising full fifteen times,

I’m about to start up ClVu-t’ang Gorge,

so I stop to hike among Wu Mountain peaks,

Wu Mountain peaks towering inexhaustibly

above Pa lands stretching away, limitless.

I climb fringes of sunlight, clutching vines,

and rest on rocky heights up beyond mist,

then race on, soon reaching the cragged

summit. There, no haze to the end of sight,

I look down cinnabar valleys left behind,

then up into azure heaven I’ve come so near,

azure heaven— if I could reach it, I could

sail away who knows where on the Star River.

Gazing at clouds, I know Shun’s ancient tomb,

and river thoughts reach earth-cradling seas.

Wandering around, so much to see in late

lonesome light, quiet thoughts grow countless.

Snowdrifts blaze, lighting empty valleys,

and the wind sings through forest trees.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 101

On the trail home, twilight comes. And yet,
the beauty of things still doesn’t rest.

Gibbons call early along the cold river,

the moon among pine shadows already risen

and boundless, how boundless— moonlight,

and the sorrow in a gibbon’s pure cry,

unbearable as I toss my walking-stick aside

and leave the mountains for this lone boat.

102 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

MAKING MY WAY TOWARD YEH-LANG IN EXILE,
I REMEMBER WALKING AMONG PEACH
BLOSSOMS LONG AGO AT AUTUMN RIVER

Peaches in blossom, spring waters high,

white stones appear, then sink away,

and rustling wisteria branches sway,

a half moon drifting azure heaven.

Who knows how many fiddleheads wait,

clenched along paths I once walked?

In three years, back from Yeh-lang,

I’ll resolve my bones into gold there.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 103

LEAVING K’UEI-CHOU CITY EARLY

Leaving K’uei-chou behind among dawn-tinted clouds,

I return a thousand miles to Chiang-ling in a day:

suddenly, no end to gibbons on both banks howling,

my boat’s breezed past ten thousand crowded peaks.

104 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

TRAVELING TUNG-T’ING LAKE WITH CHIA CHIH
AND MY UNCLE, LI YEH

Not a trace of mist on this southern lake tonight,

we could sail for heaven across autumn waters.

Let’s follow distant Tung-t’ing moonlight all the way

and bargain for wine off among the white clouds.

Shun’s wives came to bury him and never returned.

Gone among Tung-t’ing’s autumn grasses, they’re goddesses

now. A jade mirror sweeps open across the bright lake,

and in a pure-color painting, Goddess Mountain appears.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 105

AFTER CLIMBING PA-LING MOUNTAIN, IN
THE WEST HALL AT K’AI-YUAN MONASTERY:
OLLERED TO A MONK BEYOND THIS WORLD
ON HENG MOUNTAIN

There’s a sage monk on Heng Mountain,

the beauty of five peaks his true bones,

autumn moon alight in a sea of water

revealing his ten-thousand-mile heart.

A guardian gone into southern darkness,

pilgrims of the Way all visit him there,

sweet dew sprinkling down, a language

clear and cool gracing flesh and hair.

Bright lake a mirror of fallen heaven,

scented hall a gate into all this silver:

come for the view, I feed on kind winds,

new blossoms teaching mind this vast.

106 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

AT LUNG-HSING MONASTERY, CHIA AND I
CUT BRANCHES FROM AN WU-T’UNG TREE,
THEN GAZE AT YUNG LAKE

The green wu-t’ung’s branches down,

we can sit looking out at Yung Lake.

Autumn mountains bathed pure in rain,

forests radiant, soaked in emerald quiet,

its bright mirror of water turns lazily

in a painted screen of changing cloud.

A thousand eras lost to wind, and still

the great sages all share this moment.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 107

WRITTEN ON THE WALL WHILE DRUNK AT WANG’S
HOUSE NORTH OF THE HAN RIVER

Em like some partridge or quail—

going south, then flying lazily north.

And now Eve come to find you here,

a little wine returns me to the moon.

108 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

LOOKING FOR YUNG, THE RECLUSE MASTER

Emerald peaks polish heaven. I wander,

sweeping clouds away, forgetting years,

looking for the ancient Way. Resting

against a tree, I listen to streamwater,

black ox dozing among warm blossoms,

white crane asleep in towering pines.

A voice calls through river-tinted dusk,

but I’ve descended into cool mist alone.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 109

AFTER AN ANCIENT POEM

We the living, we’re passing travelers:

it’s in death alone that we return home.

All heaven and earth a single wayhouse,

the changeless grief of millennia dust,

moon-rabbit’s immortality balm is empty,

and the timeless fu-sang tree kindling.

Bleached bones lie silent, say nothing,

and how can ever-green pines see spring?

Before and after pure lament, this life’s

phantom treasure shines beyond knowing.

110 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

GAZING AT CRAB-APPLE MOUNTAIN

Up early, I watched the sun rise again.

At dusk, I watched birds return to roost.

A wanderer’s heart sours bitterly. And here

on Crab-Apple Mountain, it’s only worse.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 111

FACING WINE

Never refuse wine. I’m telling you,

people come smiling in spring winds:

peach and plum like old friends, their

open blossoms scattering toward me,

singing orioles in jade-green trees,

and moonlight probing gold winejars.

Yesterday we were flush with youth,

and today, white hair’s an onslaught.

Bramble’s overgrown Shih-hu Temple,

and deer roam Ku-su Terrace ruins:

it’s always been like this, yellow dust

choking even imperial gates closed

in the end. If you don’t drink wine,

where are those ancient people now?

112 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

DRINKING ALONE ON A SPRING DAY

East wind fans clear, warm air through

shoreline trees ablaze with spring color,

and sunlight shimmers in green grasses,

falling blossoms scattering into flight.

Lone cloud returning to empty mountains,

birds returning, each to its own home:

in all this, nothing is without refuge.

I alone have nowhere in life to turn.

Forever drunk, I face rock-born moon,

sing for wildflower sights and smells.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 113

2

Flushed clouds of wandering immortals

fill my thoughts, and all their island

distances. Facing a winejar, boundless

occurrence settling into lazy repose,

I lay my ch’in against a towering pine

and gaze to far mountains, cup in hand.

Birds leaving vanish into endless sky.

The sun sets. A lone cloud returns.

It’s just that, here in this failing light,

long ago flares into colors of autumn.

114 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

A FRIEND STAYS THE NIGHT

Rinsing sorrows of a thousand forevers

away, we linger out a hundred jars of wine,

the clear night’s clarity filling small talk,

a lucid moon keeping us awake. And after

we’re drunk, we sleep in empty mountains,

all heaven our blanket, earth our pillow.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 115

SPENDING THE NIGHT BELOW WU-SUNG
MOUNTAIN, IN OLD MRS. HSUN’S HOUSE

Overnight below Wu-sung, I find empty

quiet’s brought no one joy, and autumn

harvest only means farmhouses in grief,

neighbor women out pounding grain cold.

She bows before serving us watergrass,

radiant moonlight filling empty plates.

A mother cast so adrift shames the world:

out pleading three times and still no food.

116 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

FAREWELL TO HAN SHIH-YU WHO’S LEAVING
LOR HUANG-TE

Where’s the splendor in embroidered robes of long ago?

Wine’s bought on credit tonight, but we’re together,

and in an instant, East Mountain’s all borrowed moonlight.

All night drunk, we sing farewell to a moonlit stream.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 117

DRINKING ALONE

As if they could feel, spring grasses

turn shade beside the house jade-green.

When this east wind blows, grief comes.

I sit out in its bluster, my hair white,

and drink alone, inviting my shadow.

Chanting lazily, I face trees in flower.

Old pine, what have you learned? Cold,

cold and desolate— who’s your song for

On stone, fingers in moonlight dance

over the ch’in in my lapful of blossoms.

Out beyond this jar of wine, it’s all

longing, longing— no heart of mine.

118 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

SEEING THAT WHITE-HAIRED OLD MAN LEGEND
DESCRIBES IN COUNTRY GRASSES

After wine, I go out into the fields,

wander open country—- singing,

asking myself how green grass

could be a white-haired old man.

But looking into a bright mirror,

I see him in my failing hair too.

Blossom scent seems to scold me.

I let grief go, and face east winds.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 119

THOUGHTS IN NIGHT QUIET

Seeing moonlight here at my bed,

and thinking it’s frost on the ground,

I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,

then back, dreaming of my old home.

120 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

LINES THREE, FIVE, SEVEN WORDS LONG

Autumn wind clear,

autumn moon bright,

fallen leaves gather in piles, then scatter,

and crows settling-in, cold, startle away.

Will we ever see, ever even think of each other again?

This night, this moment: impossible to feel it all.

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 121

SOUTH OF THE YANGTZE, THINKING OF SPRING

How many times will I see spring green

again, or yellow birds tireless in song?

The road home ends at the edge of heaven.

Here beyond the river, my old hair white,

my heart flown north to cloudy passes,

I’m shadow in moonlit southern mountains.

My life a blaze of spent abundance, my old

fields and gardens buried in weeds, where

am I going? It’s year’s-end, and I’m here

chanting long farewells at heaven’s gate.

122 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

ON GAZING INTO A MIRROR

Follow Tao, and nothing’s old or new.

Lose it, and the ruins of age return.

Someone smiling back in the mirror,

hair white as the frost-stained grass,

you admit lament is empty, ask how

reflections get so worn and withered.

How speak of peach and plum: timeless

South Mountain’s blaze in the end?

WAR, EXILE, AND LATER YEARS (A.D. 755-762) 123

 NOTES

6 STAR RIVER: the Milky Way.

CREATION: literally “create change” (tsao-bua), the force
driving the ongoing process of change—a kind of deified
principle.

8 HUI YUAN: A major figure in the history of Chinese

Buddhism, Hui Yuan (334-416) emphasized dbyana (sit-
ting meditation), teaching a form of Buddhism which
contained early glimmers of Ch’an (Zen).
LING-YUN: Hsieh Ling-yim (385-433), the great pre-T’ang
poet (see Introduction). When he first visited Hui Yuan in
the Lu Mountains at his Tung-lin Monastery (see follow-
ing poem), Ling-yim’s “heart submitted to him reverent-
ly.” Hsieh Ling-yim thereupon joined Hui Yiian’s spiritu-
al community, and Buddhism became central to his life
and work.
KALPA: In Ch’an, the term for an endlessly long period of
time. Originally, in Vedic scripture, a kalpa is a world-
cycle lasting 4,320,000 years.

10 CH’i: universal breath or life-giving principle.

HSI-HO: Hsi Ho drove the sun-chariot, which was pulled
by six dragons.
LU YANG: Lu Yang’s army was in the midst of battle as
evening approached. Fearing nightfall would rob him of
victory, Lu Yang shook his spear at the setting sun, and it
thereupon reversed its course.

12 Translated by Ezra Pound as “The River-Merchant’s

Wife,” this poem is a modernist classic. Indeed, translat-

124 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

 ed under his Japanese name (Rihaku) in Pound’s Cathay,
Li Po was an important part of the modernist revolution
Pound engineered. Nevertheless, there is no reason to
think the husband is a river-merchant. The wandering Li
Po was likely thinking figuratively of his own wife.
This poem is in the yiieh-fu form. Originally, yiieh-fu
were folk songs, often critical of the government, which
were collected by the Han emperor Wu’s Music Bureau
(“yiieh-fu” means “Music Bureau”) to gauge the senti-
ments of the common people. Hence, as poets later adopt-
ed the form, using a common person as the poem’s speak-
er became a convention. As here, the speaker is often a
woman left alone by her lover (cf. 20-21, 29, 65). See also
p. 58 and note.

15 MENG HAO-JAN: the eldest of the great High T’ang poets.

20 CLOUDS-AND-RAIN LOVE: From the legend of a prince who,

while visiting Wu Mountain, was visited in his sleep by a
beautiful woman who said that she was the goddess of
Wu Mountain. She spent the night with him, and as she
left said: “At dawn I marshal the morning clouds; at
nightfall I summon the rain.”

28 CH’iN: ancient stringed instrument which Chinese poets

used to accompany the chanting of their poems. It is
ancestor to the more familiar Japanese koto.

30 CHUANG-TZU ... BUTTERFLY: This story, in which Chuang-tzu

can’t decide whether he’s Chuang-tzu dreaming he’s a
butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he’s Chuang-tzu, is
found at the end of Chapter 2 in the Chuang Tzu.
EASTERN SEAS ... WESTERN STREAMS: After China’s rivers flow
into the eastern sea, they ascend to become the Star River
(Milky Way) and flow back across the sky to descend

NOTES 125
 again in the west, forming the headwaters of the rivers
again.

33 Wu was an ancient kingdom in southeast China. The Wu

emperor referred to in this poem is Fu Ch’a, whose weak-
ness for beautiful women had disastrous consequences
(much like Hsiian-tsung’s infatuation with Yang Kuei-fei,
which gives these poems a layer of topical political com-
ment). The legendary beauty Hsi Shih was sent to Fu Ch’a
by Kou Chien, ruler of Yueh, Wu’s rival kingdom to the
south. Once Fu Ch’a had succumbed to her pleasures and
neglected his kingdom, Yueh invaded and conquered Wu
(472 B.C.), a subject taken up in the following poem.

36 T’Ai MOUNTAIN: There are five especially sacred mountains

in China, one for each of the four directions and one at
the center. T’ai, in the east, is perhaps the most revered of
these mountains, and its summit the destination of many
pilgrims. The T’ai Mountain complex includes many
lower ridges and summits, one of which is Ffeaven’s
Gate.

41 Li Po’s way of life often led him to inns and winehouses

where courtesans entertained guests with a popular song-
form called tz’u. Probably imported from Li Po’s native
central Asia, tz’u had been considered unfit for serious
poets. Not surprisingly, Li Po was the first major poet to
ignore this convention. Each tz’u had a different song-
form, and poets would write lyrics that fit the music,
which meant using quite irregular line lengths. Flere, the
title of the original tz’u is “Cb’ing P’ing,” hence: “Cb’ing
P’ing Lyrics.” Tz’u thereafter grew in importance as a
serious poetic form, eventually becoming the distinctive
form of the Sung Dynasty.

126 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

47 SPIRIT:It was thought that in sleep one’s spirit could go off
to visit someone else’s dreams.

48 Although the spirit can go some dis-

SPIRIT IN SAD FLIGHT:
tance during sleep or when a person suffers some emo-
tional trauma, after death, it can travel long distances.

52 FOUR-RECLUSE PASS: Toward the end of the Ch’in Dynasty,

four sages known as the “Four White-heads” retired to
Shang Mountain near Lo-yang in protest of the tyranni-
cal government. When the Han Dynasty replaced the
Ch’in (206 B.C.), they still refused to leave the mountain.
SOUTH MOUNTAIN: Calling up such passages as “like the
timelessness of South Mountain” in the Book of Songs
(Sbib Cbing, 166/6), South Mountain came to have a kind
of mythic stature as the embodiment of the elemental and
timeless nature of the earth.

58 Another kind of yiieb-fu, the traditional form for poems

of social protest, which allows rather extreme metrical
irregularities. As is often the case with T’ang Dynasty
yiieb-fu, it is set in the Han Dynasty—a convention used
when the poem was likely to offend those in power (here
the protest would be against the expansionist militarism
of the government). The speaker here is a soldier.
HSIUNG-NU: war-like nomadic peoples occupying vast
regions from Mongolia to Central Asia during the Han
Dynasty. They were a constant menace on China’s north-
ern frontier.

60 CH’IN: see note for p. 28.

61 Silkworms, which feed on

SILKWORMS ... SLEPT THREE TIMES:
mulberry leaves, go through three or four cycles of feed-

NOTES 127
 ing and sleeping each spring and summer before spinning
their cocoons.

68 HSIEH T’lAO: 5th-century poet remembered for his landscape

poems.

74 CHAO: A native Japanese, Chao went to China as a young

man to complete his education. He remained there and
rose to high office. In A.D.753, he tried to return to Japan,
but his ship was blown off course and wrecked. Chao sur-
vived, but when Li Po wrote this poem, it was apparent-
ly thought that he had perished.

91 PHOENIX: The mythic phoenix appears only in times of

peace and sagacious rule, which was certainly not the case
during the An Lu-shan rebellion when this poem was
written.
wu . . . CHIN: The ancient kingdom of Wu and the Chin
Dynasty both had their capitals at Chin-ling.

93 HSIEH AN: One of Li Po’s favorite historical figures, Hsieh

An (A.D. 320-385) lived as a scholar-recluse until the coun-
try’s difficulties required that he enter government service.
North China had already fallen to invading “barbarians.”
When their armies advanced on the south, Hsieh led an
outnumbered Chinese army that repelled them, thereby
saving China from being completely overrun.

94 NORTHERN DIPPER ... SOUTHERN WINNOW: constellations.

95 KINSMAN: Li Yung, who was executed on trumped-up

charges by Li Lin-fu, the notorious prime minister who
was currently doing such damage to the country.

97 9/9: the 9th day of the 9th month, a holiday celebrated by

128 THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

 climbing to a mountaintop and drinking chrysanthemum
wine, which was believed to enhance longevity.

99 GEESE: traditionally associated with letters from loved

ones far away.

100 THREE GORGES: a set of three spectacular gorges formed

where the Yangtze River cut its way through the formi-
dable Wu Mountains, forming a two-hundred-mile
stretch of very narrow canyons. Famous in Chinese poet-
ry for the river’s violence and the towering cliffs alive with
shrieking gibbons, travel through them was very danger-
ous. The three gorges are: Ch’ii-t’ang Gorge, which
begins at Kuei-chou; Wu Gorge; and furthest downsteam,
Huang-niu Gorge, the first Li Po would encounter on his
journey upstream.

101 SHUN: last emperor of China’s legendary Golden Age (reg-

nant 2255-2208 B.C. ). After his death, the world began to
decline.

109 BLACK ox ... WHITE CRANE: animals the immortals typically

rode in their celestial journeys.

110 MOON-RABBIT: According to popular myth, there is a rab-

bit on the moon under a cinnamon tree. There it pounds
a balm of immortality using, among other things, sap and
bark from the tree.
TIMELESS FU-SANG TREE: The sun is, also according to popu-
lar myth, ten crows— one for each day of the week. Each
day, one sun-crow rises from the vast fu-sang (mulberry)
tree in the far east. After setting, it waits in the tree’s
branches until its turn to rise comes again, ten days later.

123 SOUTH MOUNTAIN: see note for p. 52.

NOTES 129
 FINDING LIST

TEXTS:

1. Li T’ai-po sbih chi. Wang Chi, ed. 1759. SPPY

(Cbiian and page number).
2. Li Po chi chiao chu. Ch’ii Shui-yiian, ed. 1980.
(Page number; and for poems with multiple sections,
section number in parenthesis).

PAGE 1. Li T’ai-po 2. Li Po chi PAGE 1. Li T’ai-po 2. Li Po chi

sbih chi chiao chu shih chi chiao chu

3 23.10a 1355 28 23.7a 1345

4 8.12a 566 29 6.11a 448
5 15.18a 941 30 2.7b 110
6 21.11a 1238 31 23.5a 1340
8 20.12a 1180 32 19.2b 1095
9 23.8a 1349 33 22.11a 1291
10 3.28b 267 34 22.11b 1292
11 30.11a 1715 35 15.12b 928
12 4.19a 326 36 20.3a 1154(1)
14 30.7b 1708 41 30.5b 1727(3)
15 15.15b 935 42 5.12a 374
16 25.11a 1465(11) 43 23.2b 1331(1-3)
17 5.12a 374(1,3) 46 23.12b 1361
18 23.8a 1348 47 25.11a 1465(5)
19 25.1b 1438 48 3.19b 244
20 25.11a 1465(7,9) 49 20.9a 1170
22 23.1a 1325 50 21.5a 1222
23 20.1a 1149 51 24.21a 1422(1)
24 20.1a 1150 52 22.11b 1293
25 6.13a 455 53 25.14b 1476
26 4.1a 279 54 30.4b 1700
27 23.7b 1347 55 13.5b 836

131
 Li T’ai-po 2. Li Po chi PAGE 1. Li T’ai-po 2. Li Po chi
sbih chi chiao chu shih chi chiao chu

56 16.19a 988 93 22.20b 1314

57 23.10a 1354 94 24.2b 1373(6)
58 3.12a 222 95 25.5a 1447
60 23.7b 1348 96 23.9a 1351
61 13.13a 858 97 20.22b 1207
63 23.1a 1326 98 20.22b 1208
64 15.12b 928 99 25.23a 1497
65 30.8b 1711 100 22.7a 1278
66 17.19b 1042(3) 101 22.7a 1278
67 23.10a 1354 103 23.14b 1367
68 21.16b 1254 104 22.8a 1280
69 22.21a 1316(3) 105 20.17b 1194(2,5)
70 22.21a 1316(10) 106 21.15a 1250
71 18.13b 1077 107 21.15b 1251
72 25.26b 1507 108 23.9b 1353
73 24.19b 1416 109 23.9a 1350
74 25.25a 1503 110 24.2b 1373(9)
75 20.19a 1198 111 21.17a 1256
76 20.14b 1186 112 23.9a 1352
78 8.1a 533 113 23.5b 1341
(1,-5,6,8,9, 115 23.5b 1341
10,11,12, 116 22.8b 1283
13,14,15, 117 18.1a 1047
17) 118 23.5a 1340
85 20.14a 1183 119 24.23a 1427
86 8.16b 579 120 6.9b 443
87 20.20b 1203 121 25.10b 1464
91 21.9b 1234 122 24.19b 1416
92 22.14b 1299(3) 123 24.19a 1414

THE SELECTED POEMS OF LI PO

 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alley, Rewi. Li Pai: 200 Selected Poems. Hong Kong: Joint

Publishing, 1980.
Billeter, Jean Francois. The Chinese Art of Writing. New
York: Rizzoli, 1990.
Pages 192-195 of this book contain a color reproduction
of the only surviving piece of calligraphy that can be
attributed to Li Po, as well as a splendid stroke-by-stroke
description of how Li Po’s character is revealed in his cal-
ligraphic art.
Birch, Cyril. Anthology of Chinese Literature: Prom Early
Times to the Fourteenth Century. New York: Grove
Press, 1965.
Cheng, Francois. Chinese Poetic Writing: With an Anthology
ofT’ang Poetry. Chinese trans. J. P. Seaton. Bloomington:
Indiana Univ. Press, 1982.
Cooper, Arthur. Li Po and Tu Fu. Harmondsworth: Penguin
Books, 1973.
Eide, Elling. “On Li Po.” In Perspectives on the T’ang. New
Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1973.
. Poems by Fi Po. Lexington: Anvil Press, 1984.
Hamill, Sam. Banished Immortal: Visions of Li T’ai-po.
Fredonia: White Pine Press, 1987.
Liu Wu-chi, and Irving Yucheng Lo. Sunflower Splendor:
Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry. Bloomington:
Indiana Univ. Press, 1975.
Nienhauser, William. The Indiana Companion to Traditional
Chinese Literature. Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press,
1986.

133
Owen, Stephen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High
Hang. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1981.
. Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics.
Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Pound, Ezra. “Cathay.” In Personce: The Shorter Poems.
Revised edition. New York: New Directions, 1990.
Seaton, J. P. and James Cryer. Bright Moon, Perching Bird:
Poems by Li Po and Tu Fu. Middletown: Wesleyan Univ.
Press, 1987.
Shigenyoshi, Obata. The Works of Li Po the Chinese Poet.
New York: Dutton, 1922.
T’ao Ch’ien. The Selected Poems ofT’ao Ch’ien. Trans. David
Hinton. Port Townsend: Copper Canyon Press, 1993.
Tu Fu. The Selected Poems of Tu Fu. Trans. David Hinton.
New York: New Directions, 1989.
Waley, Arthur. The Poetry and Career of Li Po 701-762 A.D.
London: Allen & Unwin, 1950.
Watson, Burton. Chinese Lyricism. New York: Columbia
Univ. Press, 1971.
. The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry. New
York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1984.

134 BIBLIOGRAPHY
 BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 9999 05925 168 4

POETRY EIGHTH PRINTING

The Se ecled R(oems (D>

TRANSLATED BY DAVID HINTON

Li Po (A.D. 701-762) lived in T’ang Dynasty China, but his influ-

ence has spanned the centuries: the pure lyricism of his poems has
awed readers in China and Japan for over a millennium, and
through Ezra Pound’s translations, Li Po became central to the
modernist revolution in the West. His work is suffused with
Taoism and Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism, but these seem not so much
spiritual influences as the inborn form of his life. There is a set-
phrase in Chinese referring to the phenomenon of Li Po: “Winds
of the immortals, bones of the Tao.” He moved through this
world with an unearthly freedom from attachment, and at the
same time belonged profoundly to the earth and its process of
change. However ethereal in spirit, his poems remain grounded in
the everyday experience we all share. He wrote 1200 years ago, half
a world away, but in his poems we see our world transformed.
Legendary friends in eighth-century T’ang China, Li Po and Tu
Fu are traditionally celebrated as the two greatest poets in the
Chinese canon. David Hinton’s translation of Li Po’s poems is no
less an achievement than his critically acclaimed The Selected
Poems of Tu Fu, also published by New Directions. By reflecting
the ambiguity and density of the original, Hinton continues to cre-
ate compelling English poems that alter our conception of Chinese
poetry.

“[Hinton’s] translations, while remaining faithful to the

meaning and spirit of the original, are consistently imagi-
native in language and effective as English poetry, and he
has shown a remarkable skill in capturing the particular
style and voice of the different poets he has tackled.”
—Burton Watson
Cover illustration: Liang K’ai, Li Po Chanting a Poem, hanging scroll, ink on paper,
mid-thirteenth century. Commission for the Protection of Cultural Properties, Tokyo.
Cover design: Sylvia Frezzolim Severance

ISBN-13: 978-0-8112-1323-3
ISBN-10: 0-8112-1323-4

USA $12.95
CAN $19.50 9 780811