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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Arthur Waley, trans.

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Fighting at Lung-tou

Arthur Waley, trans.

From “Chinese Poems”

Hsü-ling—Sixth Century A. D.

THE ROAD that separates me mounts eight thousand feet,

The river that parts me hangs one hundred fathoms

In summer the brambles so thick that one cannot pass—

In winter the snow so high that one cannot climb!

With branches that interlace Lung Valley is dark;

Against cliffs that tower one’s voice beats and echoes.

I turn my head and it seems only a dream

That I ever lived in the streets of Hsien-yang.