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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell, trans.

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

On the Classic of the Hills and Sea

Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell, trans.

From “Chinese Written Wall Pictures”

T’ao Ch’ien—Fourth Century

IN what place does the cinnabar-red tree of the alchemists seed?

Upon the sun-slopes

Of Mount Mi

It pushes out its yellow flowers

And rounds its crimson fruit.

Eat it and you will live forever.

The frozen dew is like white jade.

It shimmers with the curious light of gems.

Does the Yellow Emperor regard these things

Because it is the fashion to do so

Among people of importance?