_The butterfly flutters from flower to flower, The dragon-fly sips and springs lightly away, Each creature is merry its brief little hour, So let us enjoy our short life while we may._” Here is a specimen of his skill with the “stop-short,” based upon a disease common to all Chinese, poets or otherwise,--nostalgia:-- “_White gleam the gulls across the darkling tide, On the green hills the red flowers seem to burn; Alas! I see another spring has died.... When will it come--the day of my return?_” Of the poet CHANG CH’IEN not much is known. He graduated in 727, and entered upon an official career, but ultimately betook himself to the mountains and lived as a hermit. He is said to have been a devotee of Taoism. The following poem, however, which deals with _dhyâna_, or the state of mental abstraction in which all desire for existence is shaken off, would make it seem as if his leanings had been Buddhistic. It gives a perfect picture, so far as it goes, of the Buddhist retreat often to be found among mountain peaks all over China, visited by pilgrims who perform religious exercises or fulfil vows at the feet of the World-Honoured, and by contemplative students eager to shake off the “red dust” of mundane affairs:-- “_The clear dawn creeps into the convent old, The rising sun tips its tall trees with gold, As, darkly, by a winding path I reach Dhyâna’s hall, hidden midst fir and beech. Around these hills sweet birds their pleasure take, Man’s heart as free from shadows as this lake; Here worldly sounds are hushed, as by a spell, Save for the booming of the altar bell._” There can be little doubt of the influence of Buddhism upon the poet TS’ÊN TS’AN, who graduated about 750, as witness his lines on that faith:-- “_A shrine whose eaves in far-off cloudland hide: I mount, and with the sun stand side by side. The air is clear; I see wide forests spread And mist-crowned heights where kings of old lie dead. Scarce o’er my threshold peeps the Southern Hill; The Wei shrinks through my window to a rill.... O thou Pure Faith, had I but known thy scope, The Golden God[12] had long since been my hope!_” [Sidenote: WANG CHIEN] WANG CHIEN took the highest degree in 775, and rose to be Governor of a District. He managed, however, to offend one of the Imperial clansmen, in consequence of which his official career was abruptly cut short. He wrote a good deal of verse, and was on terms of intimacy with several of the great contemporary poets. In the following lines, the metre of which is irregular, he alludes to the extraordinary case of a soldier’s wife who spent all her time on a hill-top looking down the Yang-tsze, watching for her husband’s return from the wars. At length--