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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Arthur Waley, trans.

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

In a Jade Cup

Arthur Waley, trans.

From “Chinese Poems”

Ch’en Tzu-ang—Seventh Century

BUSINESS men boast of their skill and cunning

But in Philosophy they are like little children.

Bragging to each other of successful depredations,

They forget to consider the ultimate fate of the body.

What should they know of the Master of Dark Truth

Who saw the wide world in a jade cup,

By illumined conception got clear of Heaven and Earth,

On the chariot of Mutation entered the Gate of Immutability?