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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE RIVER SONG, by LI PO Poet's Biography
First Line: This boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are cut magnolia
Last Line: Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.
Alternate Author Name(s): Rihaku; Li Pai; Li Tai Pe; Li Bo; Li Bai
Subject(s): Rivers
First Line: This boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are cut magnolia
Last Line: Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.
Alternate Author Name(s): Rihaku; Li Pai; Li Tai Pe; Li Bo; Li Bai
Subject(s): Rivers
This boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are cut magnolia,
Musicians with jewelled flutes and with pipes of gold
Fill full the sides in rows, and our wine
Is rich for a thousand cups.
We carry singing girls, drift with the drifting water,
Yet Sennin needs
A yellow stork for a charger, and all our seamen
Would follow the white gulls or ride them.
Kutsu's prose song
Hangs with the sun and moon.
King So's terraced palace
is now but barren hill,
But I draw pen on this barge
Causing the five peaks to tremble,
And I have joy in these words
like the joy of blue islands.
(If glory could last forever
Then the waters of Han would flow northward.)
And I have moped in the Emperor's garden, awaiting an order-to-write!
I looked at the dragon-pond, with its willow-coloured water
Just reflecting the sky's tinge,
And heard the five-score nightingales aimlessly singing.
The eastern wind brings the green colour into the island grasses at Yei-shu,
The purple house and the crimson are full of Spring softness.
South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue and bluer,
Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-like palace.
Vine-strings a hundred feet long hang down from carved railings,
And high over the willows, the fine birds sing to each other, and listen,
Crying -- "Kwan, Kuan," for the early wind, and the feel of it.
The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and wanders off.
Over a thousand gates, over a thousand doors are the sounds of spring singing,
And the Emperor is at Ko.
Five clouds hang aloft, bright on the purple sky,
The imperial guards come forth from the golden house with their armour a-gleaming.
The Emperor in his jewelled car goes out to inspect his flowers,
He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping storks,
He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new nightingales,
For the gardens at Jo-run are full of new nightingales,
Their sound is mixed in this flute,
Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.
Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!
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HE FINDS THE MANSION by JAMES MCMICHAEL
THE RIVERS by CLARIBEL ALEGRIA
VERMILION FLYCATCHER, SAN PEDRO RIVER, ARIZONA by MARGARET ATWOOD
THE PORCH OVER THE RIVER by WENDELL BERRY
THE RIVER BRIDGED AND FORGOT by WENDELL BERRY