VERSES BY THE POET SU.*

To a new and lonely home,
Seeking quiet I have come,
Cherishing, while none intrude,
Thoughts in love with solitude.
Mountain prospects front my door,
And the Túng flows on before.
In its waters deep I see
Images of house and tree.
'Neath that thicket of bamboo,
Snow lies all the winter through.
In my darkened cottage home,
Long ere nightfall all is gloom.
In this unobserved retreat,
Freed from the gay world I sit,
Listening to the birds that sing

Anthem to the welcome spring.

*Translation of Chinese Poetry of the medieval period-see "Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society,” Part IV, 1853, page 57.

MODERN CHINESE POETRY.

The verses given below are by Commissioner Lin, from the SHAY YING LOW SHE WHA-verses and prose from the Eagle-shooting Turret, printed in Fuh-chow-Foo, and translated for the Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Part III, 1851-2.

Commissioner Lin, as near as we can learn, was born in Fuh-chow-Foo about 1787. He was distinguished as a scholar, and honored with many high offices under government. About 1838, he was commissioned as Prefect of Canton, and charged especially "to punish the consumers of opium." His activity and the vigor of his policy were the immediate cause of hastening the rupture between China and England, and of bringing on the war. In consequence of the troubles caused the government by his too faithful discharge of duty, he was recalled, was degraded in rank, and afterwards banished to E-lí, a desolate region far in the northwest territories of China. Some of his verses have reference to that banishment.

He was afterwards released, his rank restored, and he was again honored with imperial favor.

He was a voluminous writer. He prepared maps, geography, history, and statistics, respecting the different nations of the earth. He died about 1851.

Of the Poetical Compositions of Lin, a few translated specimens follow. They are crowded with allusions to the classics and to the legends of China. Lin's poetry is the subject of the highest eulogies from the critics of his nation; they call it bold, elevated, pathetic-exhibiting the warmth of his affections and the power of his mind. He is almost invariably spoken of under the title conferred upon him by the emperor-Wăn Chung Kung -"the literary and faithful."

STANZAS WRITTEN WHILE ON HIS BANISHMENT, THREADING THE PASS OF KEAYU, A GATE OF THE GREAT WALL ON THE BORDERS OF KAN-SUH.

Proud towers the frowning wall that bounds the west,
Here the tired exile reins his steed-to rest.

Turret on turret in mid-air suspended,

Till with the distant woods of Shen-se blended;
Tower rears on tower upon the Sze-chuen clouds,
And mighty mountain upon mountain crowds;
Their craggy peaks up to Heaven's boundary rise,
While the waste's vast extension dims men's eyes.
Yaou-han's most perilous pass, discern'd from hence,
Is but a clay-clod to the visual sense.

* Yaou-han is a mountain pass in Shen-se renowned for the dangers of its defile. It was here the overthrow of the Tsin dynasty

took place.

Other scenery that he meets with is thus described

The orient to the occident opes its door,
On star-lit plank* new regions I explore,

Soft reed-born music† o'er the waste is flung;

O'er my sword bent, I track the towers-crowned Tung,

In the moon's light the horses quench their thirst,
And 'midst the desert-tempests hawks are nurst:
Loo-tung's wild wastes of mountains and of seas
Alone present such fearful scenes as these.

There is a charm of real tenderness in Lin's verses to his wife, expressing the delight he felt at receiving her portrait-assurance in his exile of her unchangeable affection. She is spoken of as a lady of high education, but appears to have suffered from some deformity in her hands, to which he makes allusion in his address:

Like the wild water-fowls, in mutual love
Each upon each dependent, did we move;
But now-grief-stricken-a poor, lonely man,

I roam in desolate exile! Still the ban

Of separation is less hard from thee

* Orig. "Like Powang I embark on a star-lit log to discover new regions." Tradition reports that in the thirtieth year of Yaou, a great log was seen in the western ocean, bearing a light which shone brightly during the darkness, but was invisible in the day. This log floated periodically round the Four Seas, making the circuit once in twelve years, and was called the "penetrate moon log," or pendant star log.

"Reed echoing reed pours forth the air of Cheh-lih over the desert." Cheh-lih air—a foreign song.

Beloved

than would the horse-hide cerement* be!
Why should I weep?-I breathe the mountain air,t
Although a herdsman's humble garb I wear-
Yet I must weep-for my mind's troubled eye
Sees thee on suffering's couch of misery;
Thy gay cosmetics all neglected,-thou
Dost never seek the flattering mirror now;
Yet thy fair characters, in verse outpoured,
Have raptured all my soul-mine own adored!
I see thee, welcome thee,—in every line,
Whose every pencil touch, dear Wife! is thine!

He proceeds :

Oft think I of thy shrivel'd hand again !
Well may it guide a melancholy pen!
Shall it not be restored? the wondrous gem
Shines on thy verses, spiritualizing them
As with a heavenly agency.‡ Grass of gold,§
Thou scatterest-and thy mystic strains unrolled,
Make my heart vibrate. There's a power in song,

* Ma Yuen, a hero of the Han dynasty, in order to show his devotion to his country, exclaimed, "Let me die in battle, and my corpse be wrapped up, and sent home in a horse's hide."

† Orig. "I am a free traveler"—implying resignation to his fate, and rejoicing that he was not in confinement. The weeping in herdsman's clothes refers to an adventure of Wang chang, an official of rank under the Han dynasty.

The wondrous gem refers to the sudden cure of a deformity of the hand which is reported to have happened to a wife of Kow Kwo under the Han dynasty.

§ This refers to the lanceolated leaf strokes formed by the Chi nese pencil in writing, and which are much admired.