TENGGARA Oct. 1968
Dept. of English/ Univ. of Malaya/
Kuala Lumpur /Malaysia
Hsu Chih- Mo
Poet of the Twenties
introduced and translated
by Winnie Une- Shing Tsang *
HSU Chih -mo (1896-1931) is generally recognized as the best and the most influential of all new poets of the 1920's. He came from a wealthy Hai-ning (Chekiang) family; his father Hsu Shen-ju was one of China's early industrialist under the influence of Chang Chien. Hsu Chi-mo's early inclinations,as was natural from his family backgrounds, were towards economic and political science. After graduating from national Peking University in 1918, he went abroad to study, first in United States, at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts and at Columbia, and in England (1920- 1922), at Cambridge and the London School of Economics. Unlike Wen I-to, another well- known new poet of the time, with whom he shared a love of the English Romantic poets and with whom he was associated in the formation of the Crescent Moon Society, he cherished no feeling of animosity towards his Western hosts. (1) Hsu's chief friend at King's College , Cambridge, was the Platonish and social thinker Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1862-1932) who had visited China and was a well-known sinophile. Indeed it seems to have been the peacefulness and the aristocratic beauty of Cambridge which decided Hsu on a literary career. In one of his best known essays, 'The Cambridge I know' he described the beautiful setting of Cambridge and the surrounding country-side . In his poem 'Goodbye Cambridge' (Tsai-hui-pa K'ang-ch'iao) he expressed his gratitude to Cambridge in the following words:
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* The present article and translation are a revised version of material originally presented in a doctoral dissertation, 'The new literature movement with particular reference to new poetry, 1917- 1927.'
1) Hsu's personal charm no doubt played an important part in the friendly reception accorded to him by sections of English literary society. Harold Acton writes of the 'votalite Chih-mo, in whose company foreign friends were oblivious of any racial disparity' (Harol Acton & Ch'en Shih-hsiang, Modern Chinese Poetry, Oxford: 'The Kem Press Ltd., 1936, p. 25).
I only delight that in the civilaztion of tall
buildings and fast cars,
I have not sullied my mind. Today facing this
ancient scene, the bridge's shadows, and
the rushes' thickness,
I can still meet you with an open heart; silently
I grieved to leave.
Although we met late, yet in this year
The angry tides of the revolution in my heart,
all dashed
Between the banks of your lovely river ...(2)
Hsu died in an air crash in November, 1931, at the conparatively young age of 35 (Acton compares him with Rupert Brooke). (3) While it is possible to raise the question of how his work might have changed had he lived longer, there is no sign in his poetry of the faltering and despair of universalism which came to Wen I-to. Of all who attempted fusion of things Chinese and Western in teh decade which followed the Literary Revolution, Hsu was the most secessful. Though hr might stumble sometimes in execution, as will be illustrated, he seems not to have been in doubt over the propriety of his general course. When he returned to China in October 1922. Hsu plunged into the literary and intellectual world of Peking. He was no doubt greatly heelped by the support of the veteran reformer and publicist Liang Chi'i-ch'ao ). In 1924 Hsu obtained a post in National Peking Univeristy and in the same year greatly increased his reputaion by his brilliant performance as interpreter to the famous Indian poet and author Rabindranath Tagore (1961- 1941) during the latter's visit to China. In March 1925 Hsu set out on the second of his three trips to Europe. (the last was in 1928).
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2) Hsu Chih-mo, The Collected Works of Hsu Chih-mo (Hsu Chih-mo chu'an-chi), p. 37 Hereafter abbreviated to Collected Works.
3) Harold Acton & Ch'en Shih-hsiang, Modern Chinese Poetry
1925 was an important year in Hsu's development. He wrote some of his best essays in this year, and his first volume of poems The Poems of Chih-mo (Chi-mo te shih) was published by the Pei-hsin Company. In October he became the editor of the influential literary supplement of the Peking Morning Post (Ch'en-pao). From supplemnt, a poetry magazine Shih-k'an. Hsu was now one of the leading members of the 'Crescent Moon' group which included Hu Shih, Wen I-to, Liang Shih-ch'in and others and which in 1928 was to organize the Hsin-yuch Book Company and to publish The Crescent Moon Monthly (Hsin-yueh yueh-k'an).
Hsu left four collections of poems : The Poems of Chi-mo (1925), A Night in Florence (Fei-leng-ts'ui te i-yeh, 1926) The Tiger (Meng-hu chi, 1931) and Roaming in Clouds (Yun-yu, 1932); three volumes of essays, one novel, one play and a volume of his diary and letters.
(...)
Hsu admired many English poets, among them Blake, Byron, Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Swinburne nas hardy. Keat's influence on poems by Hsu has been noted. Hsu's prose includes essays on Keats 'Ode to a Ninghtingale,' an on Byron. The influence of Browning and Swinburne is strong in his love poetry. Hsu was also influenced by Thomas Hardy, whom he had met during his second visit to England. In the first issue of Crescent Moon Monthly he wrote an article to introduce the writings of Hardy and translated some of his poems. He also wrote a poem entitled 'Hardy. (4 ) The pessimistic note, characteristic of Hardy, Hsu captures with ease. His poems 'This Year, Living is Not Easy' (Che nien-t'ou cho pu jung-i), 'In the Train from Shanghai to Hangchow' (Hu-hang che' chung) and 'The End of Sprin' (Ts'an ch'un) all bear traces of Hardy's influence. ...
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4) Collected Works, pp. 35-37.
(...)
The style of Hsu's poetry is, on the whole, fresh, refined and expressive. He was comparatively versatile poet and treated a fairly wide range of subjects. Apart from his experiments in rhythm Hsu's paerticular contribution to the new poetry of the 1920's was top bring back an elegance of diction which relieved the paucity and starkness of language of Shu Shih and other 'pioneers' of the free verse school. (5)
(...)
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5) The poets of the first decade of Chinese new poetry may be roughly divided into three schools : the free verse school (e.g. Hu Shih and Chu Tzu-ch'ing), the rigid form school )e.g. Hsu Chih-mo and Wen I-to), and the symnolist school (e.g. Li Chin-fa and Ta-Wang-shu.)
MOURNING FOR MANSFIELD
Last night I dreamed that I entered a secluded valley;
I heard the cucoo lamenting in the lily chump.
Last night I dreamed I climbed a high peak;
I saw a bright tear fall down from the sky.
Beyond the outskirts of ancient Rome there is a
cemetery;
Quietly lie the bones of a poet traveller who died
a hundred years ago.
A hundred years later the wheels of the black hearse
Clamour by the green wood of Fontainebleau.
It is said that the universe is an unfeeling mechanism;
Why does the ideal like a bright lamp shine before us?
It is said that nature is the expression of Truth,
Goodness and Beauty;
Why isn't there a rainbow always on the horizon?
Although you and I have met only once --
But that immortal twenty minutes!
Who will believe that your graceful form and intelligent
manner
Have eternally departed from the world like morning dew?
It is not so! Life is but an illusion of reality.
Your beautiful soul will forever receive the love
of God:
A short stay of thirty years is like a canna's
chance apparence,
Amid my tears I think of your smiling return to Elysium.
Mansfield, do you remember our Pledge in London:
This summer we shall meet beside Lake Geneva.
The waters of Lake Genevan for ever embrace the snowy
shadow of Mt. Blanc.
Today sadly I look at the cloudy sky; my tears fall!
I then first realised the ebb and flow of life,
As if in a dream I suddenly felt the seriouness of love,
The realisation of life is the maturity of love
I now because of death feel the limits of life and love.
Because feeling is an unbreakable crystal,
Love is the only path in real life.
Death is a great mysterious furnace, herein is
A divinity from which forms are moulded.
How can my grief speed lke lighning
To move youe soull which grows daily more remote?
I shed tears in the wind to bid you a distant farawell,
I ask: when can I burst the door of life and death?
COVER IT WITH A FEW SHEETS OF GREASED PAPER
A flake, a flake, from mid-air
Fall a snowflake,
There is a woman, there is a woman,
Sitting alone on the side of the steps.
Sighing, sighing, the wind blows
In the wood:
There is a woman, there is a woman,
On this cold snowy day?
Why are you crying? Surely it is not that
You have lost your hairpin?
No, sir, no,
It is not because of a hairpin,
It is, it is because I have lost
My beloved.
In that pine wood, at the mountain foot, sir,
There is a small wooden box,
It contains my precious, my heart,
The young bones of my three year old son!
Last night I dreamt of my son:
'Mother', he cried,
'It is cold, it is cold, it is cold,
My dear mother!'
Today it is really snowing heavily, below the caves
I can see iciles,
I grope in the cold bedclothes --
Groping for my beloved son.
I have just bought a few sheets of greased paper,
I put them on his bed;
I cannot arouse my son from sleep --
That is why I feel sad.
A flake, a flake, from mid-air
Fallsa snowflake;
There is a woman, there is a woman
Sitting alone on the side of the steps.
Sighing, sighing, the wind blows
In the wood;
There is a woman, there is a woman,
Sobbing alone.
THANK HEAVEN! MY HEART BEATS AGAIN
Thank Heaven! My Heart beats again,
This blue sky, clear sea and bright sunshine,
Have chased away the marks of unhappiness of the rainy
season.
And freed my heart from toils and bonds.
Like a beautiful blossom of the coral-tree revealing its vitality,
In the clarity and freedom of my mind I forget my
confusion: --
Confusion, confusion! I do not know where it comes from,
Confining the natural flow of my mind,
A frightening nightmare, the limitless cruelty of
the dark night;
The hopes on awakening only increase the numbness
of the soul!
How many days, evenings and mornings
Have mocked at my cocoon-like unproductive existence?
I also do not know, for how many times have
I neglected the bright moon, the stars,
the rosy clouds,
The pride of the mountains and the glory
Of flowing water; I have neglected the persistent
call of nature.
No one can arouse this deep drunken dullness and
stupidity.
Now I thank this nameless great light,
Circling the beautiful blue waves and green islands
Besides there are the gliding shadow of the fishing
boat, standing alone, glued up
On the horizon, arousing a far-off dream'slandscape
and feelings.
Involuntarily I was frightend and ashamed
(Sometimes the loveliness of a smile is an arousing cudgel!)
From where comes this sudden enlightenment, dispering my
Sorrow, like a new bamboo splitting its sheath,
Revealing the green shoots within, also washing away
The film of blindness that obscured my vision, too see again
the joy of the universe.
This may be an omen of the renewing of my life.
Spirit of nature! Accept my prayer,
Allowing my unhesistating observation, allowing
My fervent offerings, allowing me to preserve
The miracle of this revelation, here and now,
This imcomparable destruction of all divisions,
I do not ask about my hopes, my disappointments;
The future and the past are only vague illusions;
I do not ask of men in seeking the entrance
to happiness.
I only ask each minute should give me an undying
impression,--
To become a speck of dust, a speck of shapeless dust,
Pursuing the chariot wheel of the Creator, going
on and on --
FRAGMNET
Whose fault is it? Whose fault is it? Is it not
a bolt from thh blue?
It is shut and locked, soon ash will pile up
on the porcelain tiles!
Don't look at the smoothness of the white stone
steps, soon alas
From the cracks of the stones grass will have be moss!
The fish in the green jade tank under the covered-way
are genuine goldfish,
Who will change the water? Who will remove the weeds?
Who will feed them?
Otherwise in three of five days they will turn with their
white bellies up and eyes bulging,
If they are not floating dead, they will be pressed flat by
ice!
The most pitiable are the few red-beaked, green feathered
parrots;
They were well trained by the Lady they know how to sing
the flute;
So spoilt, if one meal was late, then they
abusively called on people by name,
Now call! There is only the empty garden to answer you !...
HSU CHIH-MO
p. 32- 41 TENGGARA 1968.
WINNIE UNI-SHING TSANG is a lecturer in the Department of Chinese Studies,
University of Malaya. Educated at the University of Sydney, her field of interest
is modern Chinese literarture - TENGGARA 'S CONTRIBUTORS -
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