Li Po

I take my wine jug out among the flowers To drink alone, without friends. I raise my cup to entice the moon. That, and my shadow, makes us three. But the moon doesn’t drink,

With a jar of wine I sit by the flowering trees. I drink alone, and where are my friends? Ah, the moon above looks down on me; I call and lift my cup to

I love Master Meng. Free as a flowing breeze, He is famous Throughout the world. In rosy youth, he cast away Official cap and carriage. Now, a white-haired elder, he reclines Amid pines and

Last year we fought by the head-stream of the Sang-kan, This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho road. We have washed our armor in the waves of the Chiao-chi lake, We have pastured

Far up river in Szechuan, Waters rise as spring winds roar. How can I dare to meet her now, To brave the dangerous gorge? The grass grows green in the valley below Where silk

The moon shimmers in green water. White herons fly through the moonlight. The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts: Into the night, singing, they paddle home together.

If heaven loved not the wine, A Wine Star would not be in heaven; If earth loved not the wine, The Wine Spring would not be on the earth. Since heaven and earth love

When I was a boy I called the moon a White plate of jade, sometimes it looked Like a great mirror hanging in the sky, First came the two legs of the fairy And

From the walls of Baidi high in the coloured dawn To Jiangling by night-fall is three hundred miles, Yet monkeys are still calling on both banks behind me To my boat these ten thousand

Blue mountains lie beyond the north wall; Round the city’s eastern side flows the white water. Here we part, friend, once forever. You go ten thousand miles, drifting away Like an unrooted water-grass. Oh,

I was about to sail away in a junk, When suddenly I heard The sound of stamping and singing on the bank- It was you and your friends come to bid me farewell. The

“Bathed in fragrance, Do not brush your hat; Washed in perfume, Do not shake your coat: “Knowing the world Fears what is too pure, The wisest man Prizes and stores light!” By Bluewater An

Dew whitens the jade stairs. This late, it soaks her gauze stockings. She lowers her crystal blind to watch The breaking, glass-clear moon of autumn.

We climbed Yoyang Tower with All the scene around coming Into vision; looking up the Great River seeing boats turn And enter the Tungting Lake; geese Crying farewell to the river As they flew

In what house, the jade flute that sends these dark notes drifting, Scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-yang? Tonight if we should hear the willow-breaking song, Who could help but long for

I took a small path leading Up a hill valley, finding there A temple, its gate covered With moss, and in front of The door but tracks of birds; In the room of the

Athwart the bed I watch the moonbeams cast a trail So bright, so cold, so frail, That for a space it gleams Like hoar-frost on the margin of my dreams. I raise my head,

Amongst bubbling streams A dog barks; peach blossom Is heavy with dew; here And there a deer can Be seen in forest glades! No sound of the mid-day Bell enters this fastness Where blue

Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly, And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking. Which was the real-the butterfly or the man? Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?

A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop, And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it. With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off; And as

I took leave of you, old friend, at the Yellow Crane Pavilion; In the mist and bloom of March, you went Down to Yang-chou: A lonely sail, distant shades, extinguished by blue There, at

The seafarers tell of the Eastern Isle of Bliss, It is lost in a wilderness of misty sea waves. But the Sky-land of the south, the Yueh-landers say, May be seen through cracks of

You ask how I spend my time I nestle against a treetrunk And listen to autumn winds In the pines all night and day. Shantung wine can’t get me drunk. The local poets bore

The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes, Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the golden bowl. The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads together. You, pretty girl, wine-flushed, Your rosy

Amidst the flowers a jug of wine, I pour alone lacking companionship. So raising the cup I invite the Moon, Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us. Because the Moon does

Sunlight streams on the river stones. From high above, the river steadily plunges Three thousand feet of sparkling water The Milky Way pouring down from heaven.

There was wine in a cup of gold And a girl of fifteen from Wu, Her eyebrows painted dark And with slippers of red brocade. If her conversation was poor, How beautifully she could

Amongst the grandeur of Hua Shan I climb to the Flower Peak, And fancy I see fairies and immortals Carrying lotus in their Sacred white hands, robes flowing They fly filling the sky with

Clouds bring back to mind her dress, the flowers her face. Winds of spring caress the rail where sparkling dew-drops cluster. If you cannot see her by the jewelled mountain top, Maybe on the

Whence these twelve peaks of Wu-shan! Have they flown into the gorgeous screen From heaven’s one corner? Ah, those lonely pines murmuring in the wind! Those palaces of Yang-tai, hovering yonder- Oh, the melancholy