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