31. THE YO-MEI MOUNTAIN MOON
The autumn moon is half round above the Yo-mei Mountain;
Its pale light falls in and flows with the water of the Ping-chiang River.
To-night I leave Ching-chi of the limpid stream for the Three Canyons,
And glide down past Yu-chow, thinking of you whom I can not see.
This is one of the most famous poems in all Chinese literature; and it is needless to say that the translation does a gross injustice to the original verse, which combines the beauty of a fluent language with the wealth of charming associations that the proper names possess, which, by the way, take up 12 of the 28 ideographs that compose the whole poem.
The mountain and stream are all located in Szuchuan.
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