Li Po
HARD ROADS IN SHU
(Written to Music)
Oh, but it is high and very dangerous!Such travelling is harder than scaling the blue sky.. . . Until two rulers of this regionPushed their way through in the misty ages,Forty-eight thousand years had passedWith nobody arriving across the Ch'in border.And the Great White Mountain, westward, still has only a bird's pathUp to the summit of O-mêi Peak—Which was broken once by an earthquake and there were brave men lost,Just finishing the stone rungs of their ladder toward heaven.. . . High, as on a tall flag, six dragons drive the sun,While the river, far below, lashes its twisted course.Such height would be hard going for even a yellow crane,So pity the poor monkeys who have only paws to use.The Mountain of Green Clay is formed of many circles—Each hundred steps, we have to turn nine turns among its mounds.Panting, we brush Orion and pass the Well Star,Then, holding our chests with our hands and sinking to the ground with a groan,We wonder if this westward trail will never have an end.The formidable path ahead grows darker, darker still,With nothing heard but the call of birds hemmed in by the ancient forest,
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