Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/191

 It is time perhaps to bring to a close the long list, which might be almost indefinitely lengthened. SsO- K'UNG Tu (A.D. 834-908) was a secretary in the Board of Rites, but he threw up his post and became a hermit. Re- turning to Court in 905, he accidentally dropped part of his official insignia at an audience, an unpardonable breach of Court etiquette, and was allowed to retire once more to the hills, where he ultimately starved him- self to death through grief at the murder of the youthful Emperor. He is commonly known as the Last of the Tangs; his poetry, which is excessively difficult to under- stand, ranking correspondingly high in the estimation of Chinese critics. The following philosophical poem, con- sisting of twenty-four apparently unconnected stanzas, is admirably adapted to exhibit the form under which pure Taoism commends itself to the mind of a cultivated scholar:

i. ENERGY ABSOLUTE.

" Expenditure of force leads to outward decay^ Spiritual existence means inward fulness. Let its revert to Nothing and enter the Absolute^ Hoarding up strength for Energy. Freighted with eternal principles, Athwart the mighty void, Where cloud-masses darken, And the wind blows ceaseless around, Beyond the range of conceptions, Let us gain the Centre, And there holdfast without violence^ Fed from an inexhaustible supply."

ii. TRANQUIL REPOSE.

M // dwells in quietude, speechless, Imperceptible in the cosmos, Watered by the eternal harmonies^ Soaring with the lonely crane.

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