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

by L. Cranmer-Byng

Ou-Yang Hsiu of Lu-ling

A.D. 1007-1072

With the completion of the T`ang dynasty, it was my design to bring this work to conclusion. I have, however, decided to include Ou-Yang Hsiu of the Sung dynasty, if only for the sake of his "Autumn", which many competent critics hold to be one of the finest things in Chinese literature. His career was as varied as his talents. In collaboration with the historian Sung C`hi he prepared a history of the recent T`ang dynasty. He also held the important post of Grand Examiner, and was at one time appointed a Governor in the provinces. It is difficult to praise the "Autumn" too highly. With its daring imagery, grave magnificence of language and solemn thought, it is nothing less than Elizabethan, and only the masters of that age could have done it justice in the rendering.

Autumn

One night, when dreaming over ancient books,
There came to me a sudden far-off sound
From the south-west. I listened, wondering,
As on it crept: at first a gentle sigh,
Like as a spirit passing; then it swelled
Into the roaring of great waves that smite
The broken vanguard of the cliff: the rage
Of storm-black tigers in the startled night
Among the jackals of the wind and rain.
It burst upon the hanging bell, and set
The silver pendants chattering. It seemed
A muffled march of soldiers hurriedly
Sped to the night attack with muffled mouths,
When no command is heard, only the tramp
Of men and horses onward. "Boy," said I,
"What sound is that? Go forth and see." My boy,
Returning, answered, "Lord! the moon and all
Her stars shine fair; the silver river spans
The sky. No sound of man is heard without;
'Tis but a whisper of the trees." "Alas!"
I cried, "then Autumn is upon us now.
'Tis thus, O boy, that Autumn comes, the cold
Pitiless autumn of the wrack and mist,
Autumn, the season of the cloudless sky,
Autumn, of biting blasts, the time of blight
And desolation; following the chill
Stir of disaster, with a shout it leaps
Upon us. All the gorgeous pageantry
Of green is changed. All the proud foliage
Of the crested forests is shorn, and shrivels down
Beneath the blade of ice. For this is Autumn,
Nature's chief executioner. It takes
The darkness for a symbol. It assumes
The temper of proven steel. Its symbol is
A sharpened sword. The avenging fiend, it rides
Upon an atmosphere of death. As Spring,
Mother of many-coloured birth, doth rear
The young light-hearted world, so Autumn drains
The nectar of the world's maturity.
And sad the hour when all ripe things must pass,
For sweetness and decay are of one stem,
And sweetness ever riots to decay.
Still, what availeth it? The trees will fall
In their due season. Sorrow cannot keep
The plants from fading. Stay! there yet is man —
Man, the divinest of all things, whose heart
Hath known the shipwreck of a thousand hopes,
Who bears a hundred wrinkled tragedies
Upon the parchment of his brow, whose soul
Strange cares have lined and interlined, until
Beneath the burden of life his inmost self
Bows down. And swifter still he seeks decay
When groping for the unattainable
Or grieving over continents unknown.
Then come the snows of time. Are they not due?
Is man of adamant he should outlast
The giants of the grove? Yet after all
Who is it that saps his strength save man alone?
Tell me, O boy, by what imagined right
Man doth accuse his Autumn blast?" My boy
Slumbered and answered not. The cricket gave
The only answer to my song of death.

At the Graveside

Years since we last foregathered, O Man-ch`ing!
Methinks I see thee now,
Lord of the noble brow,
And courage from thy glances challenging.
Ah! when thy tired limbs were fain to keep
The purple cerements of sleep,
Thy dim beloved form
Passed from the sunshine warm,
From the corrupting earth, that sought to hold
Its beauty, to the essence of pure gold.
Or haply art thou some far-towering pine, —
Some rare and wondrous flower?
What boots it, this sad hour?
Here in thy loneliness the eglantine
Weaves her sweet tapestries above thy head,
While blow across thy bed,
Moist with the dew of heaven, the breezes chill:
Fire-fly, will-o'-the-wisp, and wandering star
Glow in thy gloom, and naught is heard but the far
Chanting of woodman and shepherd from the hill,
Naught but the startled bird is seen
Soaring away in the moonland sheen,
Or the hulk of the scampering beast that fears
Their plaintive lays as, to and fro,
The pallid singers go.
Such is thy loneliness. A thousand years,
Haply ten thousand, hence the fox shall make
His fastness in thy tomb, the weasel take
Her young to thy dim sanctuary. Such is the lot
For ever of the great and wise,
Whose tombs around us rise;
Man honours where the grave remembers not.
Ah! that a song could bring
Peace to thy dust, Man-ch`ing!

Appendix

In the preparation of this little volume I have drawn largely upon the prose translations of the great English and French pioneers in the field of Chinese literature, notably Professor Giles and the Marquis d'Hervey-Saint-Denys. The copy of the latter's `Poe/sies des Thang' which I possess has been at various times the property of William Morris, York Powell, and John Payne, and contains records of all three, and pencil notes of illuminating criticism, for which I believe the translator of `The Arabian Nights' is mainly responsible. My thanks are due to Mr. Lionel Giles for the translation of Po Chu-i's "Peaceful Old Age", and for the thorough revision of the Chinese names throughout the book. Mr. Walter Old is also responsible for a few of Po Chu-i's shorter poems here rendered. For the convenience of readers who desire to pursue the subject further, I have appended a short list of the very few books obtainable. In this matter Mr. A. Probsthain has given me invaluable assistance.

The Odes