5.

Reply to Mr Liu Yazi

A qilü

April 1949

After capturing the capital and eliminating the main force of the Guomindang, victory is in sight. Mao’s poem to his friend calls on men and women with education to serve the new regime.

I can’t forget our drinking tea in Guangzhou,

and, while the leaves turned yellow, your requesting verses in Chongqing.

Returning to the old capital thirty-one years on,

at the time of falling flowers I read your polished lines.

Do not let grievance overfill and break your heart,

but let your eye range over wider things.

Do not say that the waters of the Kunming Lake lack depth –

for watching fish they far surpass the Fuchun River.

_______________

Title: Liu Yazi was a poet, left-wing member of the Guomindang, and fellow-traveller of the CCP.

Line 1: Mao and Liu were colleagues in the Guomindang in Guangzhou in 1925–26.

Line 2: Mao and Liu exchanged poems in Chongqing in August 1945.

Line 3: The old capital is Beijing, which Mao left in 1918 as an unemployed young man and to which he returned in 1949 as ruler.

Line 4: A reworking of a line by Du Fu.

Line 7: The lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing.

Line 8: A river in Zhejiang.