A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems/Releasing a migrant "Yen" (Wild Goose)

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2585073A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems — Releasing a migrant "Yen" (Wild Goose)Arthur Waley


RELEASING A MIGRANT "YEN" [WILD-GOOSE]

At Nine Rivers,[1] in the tenth year,[2] in winter,— heavy snow;
The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their load.[3]
The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went flying east and west;
And with them flew a migrant "yen," loudly clamouring for food.
Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the ice:
It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was slow.
The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew;
They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there alive.
I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here:
Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the south.
And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile's heart,
I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds.

Yen, Yen, flying to the clouds, tell me, whither shall you go?
Of all things I bid you, do not fly to the land of the northwest;
In Huai-hsi there are rebel bands[4] that have not been subdued;
And a thousand thousand armoured men have long been camped in war.
The official army and the rebel army have grown old in their opposite trenches;
The soldier's rations have grown so small, they'll be glad of even you.
The brave boys, in their hungry plight, will shoot you and eat your flesh;
They will pluck from your body those long feathers and make them into arrow-wings!

  1. Kiukiang, the poet's place of exile.
  2. A. D. 815. His first winter at Kiukiang.
  3. By the weight of snow.
  4. The revolt of Wu Yüan-chi