Flute-Willow-Bloom Night
The Rose-Cave on Tung Shan
After Li Po
By the Cave on the Mountain how oft have the roses blown,
How oft have the silver clouds o’er the lonely mountain flown,
And no one known,
Since I came to the Cave on Tung Shan, years ago?
It is all so lone, if the Moon should steal from the sky,
And, scarfed in a floating mist, to the Cave of the Roses hie,
To whom, or why
She came to the Cave on Tung Shan, none would know!
The Theosophical Path, June 1920
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
(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
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
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
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
