My mind is a puddle in the street reflecting green Sirius; In thick dark groves trees huddle lifting their branches like beckoning hands. We eat the grain, the grain is death, all goes back to the earth's dark mass, All but a song which moves across the plain like the wind's deep-muttering breath. Bowed down upon the earth, man sets his plants and watches for the seed, Though he be part of the tragic pageant of the sky, no heaven will aid his mortal need. I find flame in the dust, a word once uttered that will stir again, And a wine-cup reflecting Sirius in the water held in my hands. CHINESE POET AMONG BARBARIANS The rain drives, drives endlessly, Heavy threads of rain; The wind beats at the shutters, The surf drums on the shore; Drunken telegraph poles lean sideways; Dank summer cottages gloom hopelessly; Bleak factory-chimneys are etched on the filmy distance, Tepid with rain. It seems I have lived for a hundred years Among these things; And it is useless for me now to make complaint against them. For I know I shall never escape from this dull barbarian country, Where there is none now left to lift a cool jade winecup, Or share with me a single human thought. SNOWY MOUNTAINS Higher and still more high, Palaces made for cloud, Above the dingy city-roofs Blue-white like angels with broad wings, Pillars of the sky at rest The mountains from the great plateau Uprise. But the world heeds them not; They have been here now for too long a time. The world makes war on them, Tunnels their granite cliffs, Splits down their shining sides, Plasters their cliffs with soap-advertisements, Destroys the lonely fragments of their peace. Vaster and still more vast, Peak after peak, pile after pile, Wilderness still untamed, To which the future is as was the past, Barrier spread by Gods, Sunning their shining foreheads, Barrier broken down by those who do not need The joy of time-resisting storm-worn stone, The mountains swing along The south horizon of the sky; Welcoming with wide floors of blue-green ice The mists that dance and drive before the sun. THE FUTURE After ten thousand centuries have gone, Man will ascend the last long pass to know That all the summits which he saw at dawn Are buried deep in everlasting snow. Below him endless gloomy valleys, chill, Will wreathe and whirl with fighting cloud, driven by the wind's fierce breath; But on the summit, wind and cloud are still:-- Only the sunlight, and death. And staggering up to the brink of the gulf man will look down And painfully strive with weak sight to explore The silent gulfs below which the long shadows drown; Through every one of these he passed before.