Yu Yuen, a satirist of 400 B. C., when China was divided into many states, ruled by inferior princes, wrote in defense of the able prime ministers who were trying to save the states: “I, too, am glad I can not fall to the intellect and moral level of princes.”
Chang Jo Hu, A. D. 800, with Isaiah-like emphasis reminds even long-lived proud China that
“There’s no rock of empire man shall make,
But tooth and tide of time shall shake.”
He also wrote:
“The waves of the Yangtze that pass to the sea,
Nevermore shall return to me;
So, friend of my soul, ’tis with me and with thee.”
Po Chuh Ih, A. D. 772, once president of the Board of War, and later an exile, wrote some Scott-like lays, including the Never Ending Wrong, and the famous Lute Girl, which is full of silver music coming over a moon-lit lake. At the lake he meets the lute-girl, once a court favorite, but now old and deserted. The poet does not try to disguise the truth. He says:
“The eye of Beauty wins a monarch’s soul,
And wrecks an Empire, too.”
Tai Chen, a poet, speaking for the Emperor Ming Huang, who is pursued to Mount Omi, in Szechuen, by the rebel, An Lu Shen, writes: “The star of empire pales before the morning beams of conquering foes.” Some of his lyrics show pretty conceits like: “The pansies are faces of loves that have died.” His Ruined Home reads like parts of Solomon’s wisdom.
Tai Chen was preceded by the most famous poet of China, Li Po (A. D. 702). He was born in Szechuen province. His patron was the Emperor Ming Huang, then a wanderer, as we have stated. A Browning-like poet of the world, he talks of the Tang emperors of Nanking, patrons of sculptors, “calling down the dreams of the gods and imprisoning them in stone.” In an ode to Nanking, he tells about: “a woman asleep by a loom, and a beautiful dream guiding her fingers along a glorious pattern that is known only to the gods.” He believes in the high mission of the poet, for he sings of “the fadeless lines of fire, running back to the births of immortal poets, who now walk amidst the stars.” Like others of the Chinese, and many of the new race of American poets, he has a strong sympathy with trade unions. He addressed an ode To the Golden Presence of Guild Brothers. He sings mightily of war in a song To my Fatherland, and then lapses thus into a sadder note when he reflects upon whom the sorrows of war come: “The pensive washwoman sends her heart to the Tartar war in far Kansu province to find her conscript soldier husband who suffers in the snows.”
Kao Shih, a contemporary poet, was a tremendous believer in the personal soul. He wrote striking verse because of his love of the occult, and his tendency to give to natural phenomena dramatic personalities.