Li Po

Li Po
Born	701 Sui Ye
Died	762 Dangtu
Occupation(s)	Poet
Nationality	Chinese
Writing period	Tang dynasty

Li Po (more correctly, Li Bai; 李白, Lǐ Bái; or Lǐ Bó) (701 – 762) was a Chinese poet. He was part of the group of Chinese scholars called the "Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup" in a poem by fellow poet Du Fu. Li Bai is often regarded, along with Du Fu, as one of the two greatest poets in China's literary history.

According to the hearsay of his time, Li Po committed suicide by drowning while drunk on rice wine, his last moments spent trying to hold the reflection of the moon in the Yangtze River.

Poetry of Li Po

Adapted from The Works of Li Po, the Chinese Poet, done into English verse by Shigeyoshi Obata. E. P. Dutton & Co, New York, 1922.

The Old Dust

The living is a passing traveler;
The dead, a man come home.
One brief journey between heaven and earth,
Then, alas! we are the same old dust of ten thousand ages.
The rabbit in the moon pounds the elixir in vain;
Fu-sang, the tree of immortality, has crumbled to kindling wood.
Man dies, his white bones are dumb without a word
While the green pines feel the coming of the spring.
Looking back, I sigh; looking before, I sigh again.
What is there to prize in the life's vaporous glory?

Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly

Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly,
And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking.
Which was the real — the butterfly or the man?
Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?
The water that flows into the depth of the distant sea
Returns in time to the shallows of a transparent stream.
The man, raising melons outside the green gate of the city,
Was once the Prince of the East Hill.
So must rank and riches vanish.
You know it, still you toil and toil—what for?