Classic Poem

T'ien-t'ai Mountain is tall,
thousands and thousands of feet!
And in the mountain are secret caves
concealing the immortals.
They say that in the Han dynasty,
two men — Liu and Juan —
came to the highest peak of this mountain
to gather medicinal herbs.
They passed peach trees and more peach trees,
crossed stream after stream,
the blossoms reflected in the water,
clouds of misty red.
They glanced around — no other men,
but suddenly, a sound:
a pair of women, lustrous jade,
came towards them through the mist.
Blowing breath like orchid fragrance,
they spoke to those two men:
" Before you got here, gentlemen,
we knew you would arrive! "
On golden trays they offered them
ambrosia of sesame
and jeweled leaves on which were written
poems of nuptial bliss.
Who would be groom? Who be the bride?
Who be married to whom?
They opened the mandarin-duck tablets
and all was written there.
They only sensed that days grew long
high up in the mountains;
they did not realize that down below
people were growing old.
After years in that immortal realm
they remembered the human sphere,
and thought of exchanging the world of white clouds
for the world of red dust below.
Alas, the moment this vulgar thought
was born within their minds
the line was clearly drawn between
the human world and heaven.
The women tried to keep them there
but the young men would not stay,
so the women escorted them as far
as the mountain's peak.
A whinnying snort upon the wind,
their piebald horses neighed;
looking back, they still could glimpse
the women's lovely forms.
Home again, they knocked once more
upon the bramble gates;
how could they have known — as oceans turn to land —
that everything had changed?
Their spouses from the previous year
they remembered very well,
but grandsons here in the seventh generation
they did not know at all.
The two men looked at each other,
and felt confused and scared;
they were regretful now that they
so lightly left that place.
Their links of fate with the immortals
no one here understood,
though they did invite their neighbors over
and told them of it all.
To find the immortals beyond this world
they set out once again
and for thousands of generations
disappeared
into the setting sun.
Nor do we know if in the end
they rejoined immortal mates;
the peach blossom trees tell nothing —
they only put forth blossoms.