The Ruined Tower

The Ruined Tower

After Li Po

Here by the moonlit ruined tower,
The men of old sang such farewells
A ghost of music yet enspells
This keen stillness chilled with the moon.

Their thought still breathes here, night and noon.
Large pond-lilies, spring by spring,
Crimson globed and creamy blue,
Loll on the old moat-waters clear,--
Olden will and dream aflower.

And now the white moon shines anew
On farewells said here, and distills
New curious witchcraft o'er these hills,--
Beauty pricked and tinged with pain.

Thought endureth, year on year.
Whispering, low-perishing,
Here as long as autumns wane,
Night by night the winds will sing
Our farewells through the wan bamboo.

The Theosophical Path, July 1925

The View from the North Tower

 Another Chinese recension.

 

 

         The View from the North Tower

                        After Li Po

The city lies below me there
Clear-cut in the early morning air:
Walls, gates, towers, bridges bow by bow
Spanning the rivers twain that flow
Quicksilverlike to their confluence where
The city lies;—

           Trees the autumn winds have stripped so bare,—
           Toilers that to their groves forth-fare,
           Of orange, shaddock, pomelo

           What I dream here, they know nor care,
           Nor how the ancient times declare
           Their presence,—what proud pageants glow,—
           Throned dragons—emperors long ago

           Dead, so the city says. I’ll swear
           The city lies. . . .

The Theosophical Path, October 1923   

The Ruined Mountain-Temple

In the 1910s, Kenneth Morris became enamored with Chinese poetry, making many recensions of his own in English for the rest of his life.

   The Ruined Mountain-Temple

        After Chang Wen-chang

Old paved court-yard, grass-o'ergrown:

    It was of old the pilgrims' goal;

A hundred years have left it alone. 

Dead generations' tokens strown,--

    Votive tablet, bhikshu's bowl,--

In the old paved court-yard grassy-grown.

 

Deep dust; a broken god o'erthrown;

    Gray mice next in alb and stole;

A hundred years have left them alone.

 

Pine-dusk,--fallen needle and cone,--

    Flitting parrot and oriole,--

In the old paved court-yard grass-o'ergrown.

 

The dark pool, rimmed with sculptured stone,--

    The mouldering curtain, crumbled scroll,--

A hundred years have left them alone. 

 

Only the old ghost wind to intone

    His noonday sutra; never a soul

In the old paved court-yard grass-o'ergrown.

 

        *            *            *             *

 

None--but the Sleeping Dragon alone. . . . 

 

The Theosophical Path, February 1920