Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/428

 416 CHINESE LITERATURE

" The dewdrop sparkles in the cup Note how the eager flowers spring uj Confine and crib them in a room, They fade and find an early doom. So "'tis that at our very feet The earth and the empyrean meet.

Enveloped by the eternal blue ; As fishes in the water bide, So heaven surrounds on every side; Yet men sin on, because they say Great God in heaven is far away."
 * The babe at birth points heavenward /<?<?,

The "stop short" was a great favourite with him. His level may be gauged by the following specimen, written as he was setting out to a distant post in the north :

" See where, like specks of spring-cloud in the sky, On their long northern route the wild geese fly ; Together der the River we will roam. . . . Ah! they go towards, and I away from home I "

Here is another in a more humorous vein :

" The rain had been raining the whole of the day, And I had been straining and working away. . . . Whafs the trouble, O cook ? You've no millet in store ? Well, I've written a book which will buy us some more"

Taken altogether, the poetry of the present dynasty, especially that of the nineteenth century, must be written down as nothing more than artificial verse, with the art not even concealed, but grossly patent to the dullest representative poets was published in 1857, but it is very dull reading, any thoughts, save the most commonplace, being few and far between. As in every similar collec-

�� �