10 Selected Classical Chinese Poems         Foreword The essence of poetry is love. Expressing it directly, using few defined words, and introducing an immense scene for imagination... these all are characteristics of Classical Chinese Poetry. Love, not 'the idea of love', is an immediate experience; an active, alive reality. Language, on the contrary, is merely a borrowed tool, static, and inflexible. It's impossible to transport the ultimate reality. Poetry or any branches of art, to the end, is only a copy --poor and fade-- of life. The poet, who opens the two doors: the world outside and the world inside himself, experiences the full vivid nature and the deep inward of his own nature; but once he tries to create his sentimental state he's just earned, he destroys at the same time the full nature (both outside and inside himself) by his borrowed, ambiguous, static language. Chinese poets, in their attempt to catch up reality, employed wisely the alive function of language. Nature is described in a few strokes, brief, concise, and especially directly expressed. The most important part of a poem is the inspiration, provocation. Here, the poet keeps silent, but in this very moment of silence, the reality comes in, fully, completely. The Chinese Poetry garden was immense. Select ten among thousands and thousands of poems is really deficient. My introduction is only a humble step to help open one of the many ways to approach the Chinese Poetry. If you, my English readers, could enjoy and appreciate the essence of Chinese Poetry, I think these ten are quite enough to help you go further inside the garden as well as inside yourself.                                                                                                           p.lan                                                                                                              11/2003 Dream and Poetry It's all ordinary experience, All ordinary images. By chance they emerge in a dream, Turning out infinite new patterns. It's all ordinary feelings, All ordinary words. By chance they encounter a poet, Turning out infinite new verses. Once intoxicated, one learns the strength of wine, Once smitten, one learns the power of love: You cannot write my poems Just as I cannot dream your dreams. HU SHI [TR: KAIYUHSU] In the style of Han Shan and Shih Te Had I been an ox or horse I would rejoice to see grass and beans; If, on the other hand, I were a woman, the sight of men would please me. But if I were really me I would always settle for what I am. If liking and dislike keep you upset surely you are being used: Big man, with all your dignity, don't mistake what you have for what you are. WANG AN-SHIH [TR: JAN W. WALLS] Moonlit night To night my wife must watch alone   the full moon over Fu-zhou; I think sadly of my sons and daughters far away, too young to understand this separation or remember our life in Chang'an In fragrant mist, her flowing hair is damp; In clear moonlight, her jade-white arms are cold. When will we lean at the open casement together while the moonlight dries our shining tears? DU FU [TR: UNKNOWN] Seeing Meng Hao-Jan off to Kuang-Ling My old friend, going west, bids farewell at Yellow Crane Terrace, Among misty blossoms of the third month, goes down to Yang-chou His lone sail's far shadow vanishes into the azure void, Now, only the Long River flowing to the sky's end. LI PO [TR: PAUL KROLL] Tune: 'Tipsy in the flower's shade' (Tsui hua-yin) Thin mist-thick clouds -- sad all day long. The gold animal spurts incense from its head. Once more it's the Festival of Double Nine; On the jade pillow -- through mesh bed curtain -- the chill of midnight starts seeping through. At the eastern hedge I drink a cup after dusk; furtive fragrances fill my sleeve. Don't say one can't be overwhelmed: When the west wind furls up the curtain, I'm more fragile than the yellow chrysanthemum. LICH'ING-CHAO [TR: EUGENE EOYANG] Opposite a post-station, The boat moonlit beside a monastery My boat mirroring a clear, bright moon Deep in the night, I leave lanterns unlit. A gold monastery stands beyond green maples Here, a ed post-tower beside white water. Faint, drifting from the city, a crow's cry Fades. Full of wild grace, egrets sleep. Hair white, a guest of lakes and rivers, I tie blinds open and sit alone, sleepless. DU FU [TR: DAVID HINTON] Journeying to Hsiang-Yi Speeding flowers along the shores mirror my boat red; A bank of elms for a hundred li, half a day's breeze -- Lying, I watch the clouds motionless everywhere in the sky, Not knowing that the clouds and I are both traveling east. CH'EN YU-YI [TR: IRVING Y. LO] A sketch of Mount Chung Noiselessly, the mountain stream circles the bamboo grove; West of the bamboo, flowers and grasses sport with the tenderness of spring. I sit under thatched eaves facing this all day; Not a single bird sings, the silence of the hills deepens. WANG AN-SHIH [TR: JAN W. WALLS] Inspired The heartbreaking flood of spring is nearly over I poke along with my staff and stand on a flowering shore willow catkins dance wildly in the wind peach petals float diaphanous in the current. DU FU [TR: RED PINE]   To the tune of  Like a Dream I always remember the sunset over the pavilion by the river. So tipsy, we could not find our way home. Our interest exhausted, the evening late, we tried to turn the boat homeward. By mistake, we entered deep within the lotus bed. Row! Row the boat! A flock of herons, frightened, suddenly flew skyward. LI QUINGZHAO [TR: LUCY CHOWHO] -------------