XIII. 11. Sent to the Commissary Yüan of Ch’iao City, in Memory of Former Excursions
Do you remember how once at Lo-yang, Tung Tsao-ch’in built us a wine-tower south of the T’ien-ching Bridge?
With yellow gold and tallies of white jade we bought songs and laughter, and we were drunk month after month, with no thought of kings and princes, though among us were the wisest and bravest within the Four Seas, and men of high promotion.[33]
(But with you above all my heart was at no cross-purpose.)[34] Going round mountains and skirting lakes was as nothing to them. They poured out their hearts and minds, and held nothing back.
Then I went off to Huai-nan to pluck the laurel-branches,[35] and you stayed north of the Lo, sighing over thoughts and dreams.
We could not endure separation. We sought each other out and went on and on together, exploring the Fairy Castle.[36]
We followed the thirty-six bends of the twisting waters, and all along the streams a thousand different flowers were in bloom. We passed through ten thousand valleys, and in each we heard the voice of wind among the pines.
Then the Governor of Han-tung came out to meet us, on a silver saddle with tassels of gold that reached to the ground. And the Initiate of Tzŭ-yang[37] summoned us, blowing on his jade shēng. And Sennin music was made in the tower of Ts’an Hsia,[38] loud as the blended voices of phœnix and roc.
And the Governor of Han-tung, because his long sleeves would not keep still when the flutes called to him, rose and drunkenly danced. Then he brought his embroidered coat and covered me with it, and I slept with my head on his lap.
At the feast our spirits had soared to the Nine Heavens, but before evening we were scattered like stars or rain, flying away over hills and rivers to the frontier of Ch’u. I went back to my mountain to seek my old nest, and you, too, went home, crossing the Wei Bridge.
Then your father, who was brave as leopard or tiger, became Governor of Ping-chou[39] and put down the rebel bands. And in the fifth month he sent for me. I crossed the T’ai-hang Mountains; and though it was hard going on the Sheep’s Gut Hills, I paid no heed to broken wheels.
When at last, far on into Winter, I got to the Northern Capital,[40] I was moved to see how much you cared for my reception and how little you cared for the cost—amber cups and fine foods on a blue jade dish. You made me drunk and satisfied. I had no thought of returning.
Sometimes we went out towards the western corner of the City, to where waters like green jade flow round the temple of Shu Yü.[41] We launched our boat and sported on the stream, while flutes and drums sounded. The little waves were like dragon-scales, and the sedge-leaves were pale green. When it was our mood, we took girls with us and gave ourselves to the moments that passed, forgetting that it would soon be over, like willow-flowers or snow. Rouged faces, flushed with drink, looked well in the sunset. Clear water a hundred feet deep reflected the faces of the singers—singing-girls delicate and graceful in the light of the young moon. And the girls sang again and again to make the gauze dresses dance. The clear wind blew the songs away into the empty sky: the sound coiled in the air like moving clouds in flight.
The pleasures of those times shall never again be met with. I went West to offer up a Ballad of Tall Willows,[42] but got no promotion at the Northern Gate and, white-headed, went back to the Eastern Hills.
Once we met at the Southern end of Wei Bridge, but scattered again to the north of the Tso Terrace.
And if you ask me how many are my regrets at this parting, I will tell you they come from me thick as the flowers that fall at Spring’s end.
But I cannot tell you all I feel; I could not even if I went on talking for ever. So I call in the boy and make him kneel here and tie this up, and send it to you, a remembrance, from a thousand miles away.
XV. 2. A Dream of T’ien-mu Mountain
(Part of a Poem in Irregular Metre.)
On through the night I flew, high over the Mirror Lake. The lake-moon cast my shadow on the waves and travelled with me to the stream of Shan. The Lord Hsieh’s[43] lodging-place was still there. The blue waters rippled; the cry of the apes was shrill. I shod my feet with the shoes of the Lord Hsieh and “climbed to Heaven on a ladder of dark clouds.”[44] Half-way up, I saw the unrisen sun hiding behind the sea and heard the Cock of Heaven crowing in the sky. By a thousand broken paths I twisted and turned from crag to crag. My eyes grew dim. I clutched at the rocks, and all was dark.
The roaring of bears and the singing of dragons echoed amid the stones and streams. The darkness of deep woods made me afraid. I trembled at the storied cliffs.
The clouds hung dark, as though they would rain; the air was dim with the spray of rushing waters.
Lightning flashed: thunder roared. Peaks and ridges tottered and broke. Suddenly the walls of the hollow where I stood sundered with a crash, and I looked down on a bottomless void of blue, where the sun and moon gleamed on a terrace of silver and gold.
A host of Beings descended—Cloud-spirits, whose coats were made of rainbow and the horses they rode on were the winds.