Page:A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919).djvu/223

 ALARM AT FIRST ENTERING THE YANG-TZE GORGES

Written in 818, when he was being towed up the rapids to Chung-chou.

, a mountain ten thousand feet high: Below, a river a thousand fathoms deep. A strip of green, walled by cliffs of stone: Wide enough for the passage of a single reed. At Chü-t'ang a straight cleft yawns: At Yen-yü islands block the stream. Long before night the walls are black with dusk; Without wind white waves rise. The big rocks are like a flat sword: The little rocks resemble ivory tusks. We are stuck fast and cannot move a step. How much the less, three hundred miles? Frail and slender, the twisted-bamboo rope: Weak, the dangerous hold of the towers' feet. A single slip — the whole convoy lost: And my life hangs on this thread! I have heard a saying "He that has an upright heart Shall walk scathless through the lands of Man and Mo."