A Lute of Jade : Selections from the Classical Poets of China

by L. Cranmer-Byng

Died A.D. 710

The son of a distinguished general, he began his career as attache to the military advisers of the Emperor. These advisers were always drawn from the literary class, and their duties appear to have been chiefly administrative and diplomatic. Of his life, the less said the better. He became involved in a palace intrigue, and only saved himself by betraying his accomplices. In the end he was banished, and finally put to death by the Emperor's order. It is necessary, however, to dissociate the man from his poetry, and Sung Chih-Wen's poetry often touches a high level of inspiration.

The Court of Dreams

Rain from the mountains of Ki-Sho
Fled swiftly with a tearing breeze;
The sun came radiant down the west,
And greener blushed the valley trees.

I entered through the convent gate:
The abbot bade me welcome there,
And in the court of silent dreams
I lost the thread of worldly care.

That holy man and I were one,
Beyond the bounds that words can trace:
The very flowers were still as we.
I heard the lark that hung in space,
And Truth Eternal flashed on me.

Kao-Shih

Circa A.D. 700

One of the most fascinating of all the T`ang poets. His life was one long series of romantic adventure. At first, a poor youth battling with adversity; then the lover of an actress, whom he followed through the provinces, play-writing for the strolling troupe to which she was attached; the next, secretary to a high personage engaged in a mission to Thibet; then soldier, and finally poet of renown, acquiring with his latter years the fortune and honours denied him in his youth.

The chief characteristics of his poetry are intense concentration, a vivid power of impressionism, and a strong leaning in the direction of the occult. Indeed, one of his best-known poems, "The Return to the Mountains", makes mention of the projection of the astral body through space during sleep. Many of his poems leave us with a strange sense of horror which is suggested rather than revealed. It is always some combination of effects which produces this result, and never a concrete form.