Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/420

408 to mention that you cause an old gobbler like myself to stretch out his neck in anticipation of something else to come.

"You remember how the poet Shên beat his rival, all because of that one verse —

Well, your crab is like the sinking moon, while the duck reminds me of the jewel lamp; from which we may infer that you will meet with the same good luck as Shên.

"Again, a crab, even in the presence of the King of the Ocean, has to travel aslant; by which same token I trust that by and by your fame will travel aslant the habitable globe."

Yüan Mei's poetry is much admired and widely read. He is one of the few, very few, poets who have flourished under Manchu rule. Here are some sarcastic lines by him:

He could be pathetic enough at times, as he showed in his elegy on a little five-year-old daughter, recalling her baby efforts with the paint-brush, and telling how she cut out clothes from paper, or sat and watched her father engaged in composition. He was also, like all Chinese poets, an ardent lover of nature, and a winter plum-tree in flower, or a gust of wind scattering dead