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