10.

Ode to the Crane

A wulü

1910

Chen wrote this poem after visiting the Crane Breeding Pavilion on Gushan, a tiny island in Hangzhou’s West Lake. Working at the time as a teacher of history and geography at Hangzhou Military School, he had not abandoned his revolutionary aspirations, which he expressed in the poem by means of an allusion to the immortal crane, a symbol of high ambition.

You aspire to soar among the clouds

and dance above the lakes and seas.

First you rest briefly on the city walls,

then you climb back into the sky.

Your cold, thin, lonely shadow wings its way unseen,

your only company a solitary cloud.

Sooner or later Daoist adepts like Prince Jin

will climb the three holy mountains.

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Line 7: Prince Jin (565 BCE–?) of the Zhou Dynasty was said to have no interest in power and devoted himself instead to music and Daoism. According to legend, a crane took him up into the sky, where he became an immortal.

Line 8: According to legend, three mountains (Fenglai, Yingzhou and Fangzhang) host the immortals.