Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/265

 And in this pure sweet solitude I toy, Stretching my limbs out to await the day, No sound along the willow pathway dim Save the soft echo of the bonze? hymn"

Here too is an oft-quoted stanza, to be found in any poetry primer :

" A centenarian 'mongst men Is rare ; and if one comes, what then f The mightiest heroes of the past Upon the hillside sleep at last?

The prose writings of Liu Chi are much admired for their pure style, which has been said to " smell of antiquity." One piece tells how a certain noble who had lost all by the fall of the Chun dynasty, B.C. 206, and was forced to grow melons for a living, had recourse to divination, and went to consult a famous augur on his prospects.

" Alas ! " cried the augur, " what is there that Heaven can bestow save that which virtue can obtain ? Where is the efficacy of spiritual beings beyond that with which man has endowed them ? The divining plant is but a dead stalk ; the tortoise-shell a dry bone. They are but matter like ourselves. And man, the divinest of all things, why does he not seek wisdom from within, rather than from these grosser stuffs ?

" Besides, sir, why not reflect upon the past that past which gave birth to this present ? Your cracked roof and crumbling walls of to-day are but the complement of yesterday's lofty towers and spacious halls. The straggling bramble is but the complement of the shapely garden tree. The grasshopper and the cicada are but the complement of organs and flutes ; the will-o'-the- wisp and firefly, of gilded lamps and painted candles.

�� �