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Ch’eng Hao (1032–1085) was from Loyang. He and his younger brother, Ch’eng Yi (1033–1107), were among the earliest and most eloquent spokesmen for the Sung dynasty’s neo-Confucian philosophy, which incorporated elements of Taoism and Buddhism. Here, the older brother demonstrates the detachment of such understanding, as he stops at a Taoist temple just outside Yangchou where the Grand Canal meets the Yangtze. Arriving too late to cross the river, he watches the sun setting on the hills along both shores and notices that the floating duckweed, whose white blooms line the Yangtze in early autumn, has already finished flowering. Duckweed also represents the poet’s own rootless existence as an official, subject to imperial whim or displeasure. The region along both shores of the Yangtze was controlled at one time or another by the ancient state of Ch’u, one of its famous poets being Sung Yu (290–223 B.C.), who began his “Nine Arguments” with the line: “How mournful the season of autumn.”

Written at Huainan Temple

CH’ENG HAO

Traveling north heading south stopping where they can

duckweed blooms depart Ch’u waterways by fall

a man of the Way doesn’t mourn autumn

let the evening hills share each other’s sorrow