(1897–1931)
Born into a wealthy banker family in Zhejiang, Xu Zhimo was a romantic poet who lived a romantic life and died a romantic death. Influenced by his father, Xu first pursued a career in banking, with an ambition to be a “Chinese Hamilton” (after Alexander Hamilton). In 1918 he attended Clark University and then Columbia University. In 1921 he studied political science at Cambridge, where he encountered British Romanticism and began writing poetry. Returning to China in 1923, Xu taught at Peking University till a love scandal forced him to resign in 1925. Like Wen Yiduo and other Crescent Moon Society poets—a label derived from their journal Crescent Monthly, founded in 1928—Xu was interested in metrics, trying to develop a suitable form for the new verse. His exceptional gift for blending classical diction with the colloquial, as evidenced by “Second Farewell to Cambridge,” made him the best-known poet in modern China. On November 19, 1931, Xu flew from Nanjing to Beijing to see a woman he had fallen for. The plane crashed, and he died at the age of thirty-four.
Quietly I am leaving,
Just as quietly I came;
Quietly I wave goodbye
To clouds blazing the western sky.
The golden willow by the river
Is a bride at sunset;
In sparkling waves a radiant reflection
Ripples through my heart.
Waterlilies in soft mud,
Lush, beckoning from deep;
In the gentle waves of River Cam
I’d rather be a waterweed!
The pool under the elm’s shade
Not a spring, but a heavenly rainbow
Scattered among floating algae
Settling into a rainbow-colored dream.
Looking for a dream? Get a long pole,
Row toward the greenest of grass,
Carry a boatload of starlight,
And sing aloud in starlight’s splendor.
But I cannot sing aloud,
Silence is the tune of departure;
Even summer insects stay mute for me,
Mute is tonight’s Cambridge.
Silently I am leaving,
Just as silently I came;
I straighten my sleeves,
And carry not a patch of cloud.
—1928
I am a patch of cloud in the sky
Casting by chance a shadow on your heart
Don’t be surprised
Still less overjoyed
A trace vanishes in the blink of an eye
On the sea of dark night we met
You have your destination, I have mine
It’s fine if you remember
But best if you forget
The sparks set off by this encounter.
—1926
(Translated by Yunte Huang)