Short Poems

BY LI T'AI-PO

There is a white horse with a gold bridle to the East of the Liao Sea.
Bed-curtains of open-work silk — embroidered quilt — I sleep with the Spring wind.
The setting moon drops level to the balcony, it spies upon me. The candle is burnt out.
A blown flower drifts in through the inner door — it mocks at the empty bed.

You Boston folks & Roxbury people
Will want Tom Hyde to mend your kettle

All things decay
& so must our sleigh

The chicadee
Hops near to me.

You must not only aim aright,
But draw the bow with all your might.

Man Man is the Devil
The source of all evil.

I

The engine hammered and hummed. Flat faces of American business men lay along the tiers of chairs in one plane, broken only by the salient of a brown cigar and the red angle of a six-penny magazine. The machine was hard, deliberate, and alert; having chosen with motives and ends unknown to cut through the fog it pursued its course; the life of the deck stirred and was silent like a restless scale on the smooth surface. The machine was certain and sufficient as a rose bush, indifferently justifying the aimless parasite.

In the old time when September's stubble gleamed
And as the content of all folk-writing seemed
The true consolation for all woes, I made
Music out of stubbornness and was glad.
But now the pen writes words, and the brain is content,
Fates haggle for me, the body has its bent,
And only theological and ethical discussions
Continue like a toothache, from black hidden dread.

The buttercups that brushed my knee
Their golden dreams have whispered me,
But how am I to murmur back,
For gold is lovelier than black?

In the East fames are won,
In the West deeds are done.