By general consent Li Po himself (A.D. 705-762) would probably be named as China’s greatest poet. His wild Bohemian life, his gay and dissipated career at Court, his exile, and his tragic end, all combine to form a most effective setting for the splendid flow of verse which he never ceased to pour forth. At the early age of ten he wrote a “stop-short” to a firefly:—
“Rain cannot quench thy lantern’s light,
Wind makes it shine more brightly bright;
Oh why not fly to heaven afar,
And twinkle near the moon—a star?”
Li Po began by wandering about the country, until at length, with five other tippling poets, he retired to the mountains. For some time these Six Idlers of the Bamboo Grove drank and wrote verses to their hearts’ content. By and by Li Po reached the capital, and on the strength of his poetry was introduced to the Emperor as a “banished angel.” He was received with open arms, and soon became the spoilt child of the palace. On one occasion, when the Emperor sent for him, he was found lying drunk in the street; and it was only after having his face well mopped with cold water that he was fit for the Imperial presence. His talents, however, did not fail him. With a lady of the seraglio to hold his ink-slab, he dashed off some of his most impassioned lines; at which the Emperor was so overcome that he made the powerful eunuch Kao Li-shih go down on his knees and pull off the poet’s boots. On another occasion, the Emperor, who was enjoying himself with his favourite lady in the palace grounds, called for Li Po to commemorate the scene in verse. After some delay the poet arrived, supported between two eunuchs. “Please your Majesty,” he said, “I have been drinking with the Prince and he has made me drunk, but I will do my best.” Thereupon two of the ladies of the harem held up in front of him a pink silk screen, and in a very short time he had thrown off no less than ten eight-line stanzas, of which the following, describing the life of a palace favourite, is one:—
“Oh, the joy of youth spent
in a gold-fretted hall,
In the Crape-flower Pavilion,
the fairest of all,
My tresses for head-dress
with gay garlands girt,
Carnations arranged
o’er my jacket and skirt!
Then to wander away
in the soft-scented air,
And return by the side
of his Majesty’s chair ...
But the dance and the song
will be o’er by and by,
And we shall dislimn
like the rack in the sky.”
As time went on, Li Po fell a victim to intrigue, and left the Court in disgrace. It was then that he wrote—
“My whitening hair would make a long, long rope,
Yet would not fathom all my depth of woe.”
After more wanderings and much adventure, he was drowned on a journey, from leaning one night too far over the edge of a boat in a drunken effort to embrace the reflection of the moon. Just previously he had indited the following lines:—
“An arbour of flowers
and a kettle of wine:
Alas! in the bowers
no companion is mine.
Then the moon sheds her rays
on my goblet and me,
And my shadow betrays
we’re a party of three.
“Though the moon cannot swallow
her share of the grog,
And my shadow must follow
wherever I jog,—
Yet their friendship I’ll borrow
and gaily carouse,
And laugh away sorrow
while spring-time allows.