Originally Posted by Mr. Charlie

I've already posted some of Li Bai's poetry but have come across some superior (or preferrred at least) translations. First a little about the man:

Li Bai (701-762) is best known for his love of wine and is widely acknowledged as China's greatest poet. It is said that Li Bai never ammended or edited any of his poems, that every one of his poems is a first draft - a remarkable fact if true.

Rather unusually for the time, he was celebrated during his own lifetime and indeed recognised as a genius - a reputation that led him to become friend and advisor to the Emperor - a precarious position that later saw him imprisoned, sentenced to death, and eventually exiled.

He was a controversial figure, a free spirit with a deep love of nature and even deeper love of Taoist values who championed intoxication and the nomadic lifestyle, and criticised law and order. Rumour has it he drowned while drunkenly reaching for the reflection of the moon on the river, which, ironically, is a recurring scene in many of his poems.




You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.

- Li Bai






This next one beautifully describes the dropping away of the self until Oneness is experienced:


The birds have vanished from the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.

- Li Bai


More soon.