Page:The poet Li Po - Waley.djvu/23

Now and of old your journeys have never ceased:
Strong were that man's limbs
Who could run beside you on your travels to and fro.

The grass does not refuse
To flourish in the spring wind;
The leaves are not angry
At falling through the autumn sky.
Who with whip or spur
Can urge the feet of Time?
The things of the world flourish and decay,
Each at its own hour.

Hsi-ho, Hsi-ho,^[1]
Is it true that once you loitered in the West
While Lu Yang^[2] raised his spear, to hold
The progress of your light;
Then plunged and sank in the turmoil of the sea?
Rebels against Heaven, slanderers of Fate;
Many defy the Way.
But I will put | the Whole Lump | of Life in my bag,
And merge my being in the Primal Element.

By the river-side at Jo-yeh,
girls plucking lotus;
Laughing across the lotus-flowers,
each whispers to a friend.
Their powdered cheeks, lit by the sun,
are mirrored deep in the pool;
Their scented skirts, caught by the wind,
flap high in the air.

1. Charioteer of the Sun.
2. Who, like Joshua, stopped the sun during a battle. See Huai-nan Tzŭ, chap. vi.