Night-Fall by the River

Night-Fall by the River

After Li Po

Heaven and my coat rose petal-strewn;
   Wine-flushed the solemn evening air,—
Beauty that hides from thought how soon
   Life and time and the world forth-fare!

And then I, star by drifting star,
   (All hurrying westward) climb to the moon
For refuge:—and from heaven afar
   Down with the dreamy moonlight swoon

And shine along the stream,—where now
   No bird ’s at song—no laughters swell—
No voices wake—no lover’s vow—
   But far off whisperings of farewell. . . .

The Theosophical Path, November 1925

The Lily-Pads

The Lily-Pads

(After Li Po)

Cold ’neath the moon the dark glass-green
Water runs whitening o’er, as though
A million silvery fins below
Cut twinkling up through the quivering sheen
The aloofness of grim skies leans o’er.

Night has some secret grief she broods
In these wide watery solitudes
I think,—she fills me so with the keen
Chill of her own approachless moods
Eerie and sad ’twixt shore and shore.

I dip an oar, and send the boat
Landward. I have no heart tonight
For the waste waves and wan moonlight
And the— Ah! here the lilies float. . . .
Pardon the touch of this rude oar!

The Theosophical Path, February 1924

The Cold Clear Spring

The Cold Clear Spring

From the Chinese of Li Po (A.D. 702-762)

Blue night o’er the mountain wilds—but there’s company here,
   For the Cold Clear Spring is quietly chattering so:
   A ripple and twitter of tune that I ought to know
Is caught or wrought in the rush-rimmed waters clear.
A wild little witch of a runlet, lonely and dear,
   In the mountain wilds, and the wind in the pines to blow—
Night broods in the sky—but there’s excellent company here
   While the Cold Clear Spring is quietly chattering so.

I know—’tis the songs I left unsung I hear—
   The songs unsung and the thoughts unspoken flow
   In its lilt and twitter and ripple and whispering low;
And the wind in the pines is the lutanist.—Dark and drear
Night broods o’er the mountain wilds—but there’s merriment here
   While the Cold Clear Spring is quietly chattering so. . . .

The Theosophical Path, July 1918
 

Bamboo-and-orange Poem

Bamboo-and-orange Poem

After Li Po

Whilst I sit by my window here
A breeze all sweet with orange-bloom,
Blowing by me, fills the room,
And I hear orange-venders near
Crying their wares, and see the glow
Of gold globed fruit on the trees below;
And take my brush and ink, and clear
On the white paper page let fall
Glyphs like orange-blooms,—and all,
Fall’n, become scent, bloom, trees, fruit, call
Of orange-venders where they go,—
A poem the ends of the earth shall know.

And whilst I sit by the window here,
I watch the bamboos sway to and fro,
And hear their swish and whispers low
Like gray raindrops drifting drear,
Or a far stream o’er mountain stones,
Or a far scythe the reaper hones;
And take my brush and ink, and strew
Glyphs like sprigs of young bamboo,
That by some witchcraft echo again
Bamboo-sounds,—scythe, stream, drift of rain;
And when the page is covered, lo,
A poem a thousand years shall hear!

And time shall lay the bamboos by,
And bloom, fruit, scent, trees, groves shall go,
And they that cry the fruit shall die,
And I. . . .  But the poem has naught to fear.

The Theosophical Path, January 1924

Li Po Visits a Fallen Terrace on the Yangste Kiang

Li Po Visits a Fallen Terrace on the Yangste Kiang

Wild-grown willows hide away
The fallen terrace where, of old,
So many guests came, night and day,
With lutany and laughter gay,
Or hushed, to watch the rise of the Moon.

Down on the stream, now waning gold,
The water-chestnut gatherers sing
Till dim eve’s haunted with their song
Where the Great Kiang’s waves seaward are rolled.

But none else comes here, morn or noon,
And no one listens to their song;
And there’s no guest now, all night long,
In autumn time or bloom-mad spring,
But the Great Kiang and the yellow Moon.

The Theosophical Path, March 1930

Li Po's Song of Parrot Island

Li Po’s Song of Parrot Island

On the green island in the river, when he saw the parrots fly
  Thither, desiring its grasses, o’er the river waters of Wu,
And rise from its gem-green trees again, to wing through the sky
  Westward to where the Dragon Mountain looms purple and blue:

When he saw the dawn-mist, rising, reveal what was sweet on the air,—
  The leaves and blooms of the spear-orchid on the island shore;
And the dark waters embroidered with the pink of the peach-blooms there
  On either side of the river the trees lean o’er:

When he saw the island in the night-time, watched by a lonely moon
  From the dark blue beyond the peaks, his last night there, ere he went,
And heard the lapping and whisper of the water: his heart fell aswoon
  In his breast, for very sorrow. He knew what banishment meant.

The Theosophical Path, November 1929

After the Hermitage

 At the Hermitage

After Li Po 

A thousand precipices high
Thrust their green heads far up the sky
All round. Your vale’s too high for time
Winging, to climb; he comes not here.

Far down below I passed the gray
Cloud-veils that hide the Ancient Way
From man, and in this ether clear
Breathe the clear peace the Sages seek.

For here immortal voices speak
Audibly in the far off roar
Of the white mountain streams that pour
Their gleaming threads down chasm and peak;

And yonder in the gem-green grass
Grazes the Faery Ox that bore
Lord Lao-tse through the Western Pass
When he went forth, and came no more;

And on yon pinetree sleeps the Crane
That soard with many a seer of old,
Up through blue noon or sunset’s gold,
There whence they never came again;

And one already is halfway borne
To Western Heaven or the Isles of Morn
Where Lao-tse and his Sages reign. . . .
There might be danger, to remain. . . .

And now we have had our talk. Look down;
There Yangtse’s faint far waters shine,
Blood-flushed, mist-dimmed, to the edge of things
Where the last rays of sunset drown.

I shall go down. The White Crane’s wings
Are to bear other weights than mine. . . .

The Theosophical Path, September 1925