Classic Poem

Above, ten thousand feet of mountain,
below, water a thousand fathoms deep,
between gray gray walls on either side,
barely room for one sliver of boat!
Ch'ü-t'ang gaping, ready to wash us down,
Yen-yü, its peak looming in the middle;
not yet night, but black cliffs sink into darkness,
no wind, yet white waves leap up.
Big rocks like knives and swords,
little rocks like fangs and teeth,
you couldn't walk a single step here,
much less the thirty-three hundred li to my destination.
Flimsy threads, the bamboo-splint hawsers pulling us,
precarious, the footing of the men with their poles,
one slip and the whole boat is doomed —
my life dangles from such as these!
I've heard that he who honors sincerity and good faith
may move even among the Man and Mo people.
But from ancient times those sent into exile
were all model gentlemen, were they not?
What of someone of my fate and era,
a bungler, no such virtue to lean on?
Always I fear, talentless as I am,
I'll end among the nameless dead.