Li Bai Quotes

Now let you and me buy wine today! Why say we have not the price? My horse spotted with five flowers, My fur-coat worth a thousand pieces of gold, These I will take out, and call my boy To barter them for sweet wine. And with you twain, let me forget The sorrow of ten thousand ages!

It's long since I've gone to the East Mountains.
How many seasons have the tiny roses bloomed?
White clouds - unblown - fall apart.
In whose court has the bright moon dropped?

Bears, dragons, tempestuous on mountain and river, Startle the forest and make the heights tremble. Clouds darken beneath the darkness of rain, streams pale with a pallor of mist. The gods of Thunder and Lightning Shatter the whole range.

Forever and forever and forever

We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.

Growing older, I love only quietness: who need be concerned with the things of this world? Looking back, what better plan than this: returning to the grove.

Passing One Night in an Old Woman's Hut at the Foot of Mount Five Pines


I lodge under the five pine trees,
Lonely, I feel not quite at ease.
Peasants work hard in autumn old;
Husking rice at night, the maid's cold.
Wilce rice is offered on her knees;
The plate in moonlight seems to freeze.
I'm overwhelmed with gratitude.
Do I deserve the hard-earned food?

The universe is but a tenement
of all things visible. Darkness and day
the passing guests of Time.
Life slips away,
a dream of little joy and mean content.

Ah! wise the old philosophers who sought
To lengthen their long sunsets among flowers,
By stealing the young night's unsullied hours
And the dim moments with sweet burdens fraught.

And now Spring beckons me with verdant hand,
And Nature's wealth of eloquence doth win
Forth to the fragrant-bowered nectarine,
Where my dear friends abide, a careless band.

There meet my gentle, matchless brothers, there
I come, the obscure poet, all unfit
To wear the radiant jewelry of wit,
And in their golden presence cloud the air.
And while the thrill of meeting lingers, soon
As the first courtly words, the feast is spread,
While, couched on flowers 'mid wine-cups flashing red,
We drink deep draughts unto The Lady Moon.

Then as without the touch of verse divine
There is no outlet for the pent-up soul,
'Twas ruled that he who quaffed no fancy's bowl
Should drain the "Golden Valley" cups of wine

A pity it is evening, yet
I do love the water of this spring
seeing how clear it is, how clean;
rays of sunset gleam on it,
lighting up its ripples, making it
one with those who travel
the roads; I turn and face
the moon; sing it a song, then
listen to the sound of the wind
amongst the pines.

There is another world, other than/ this one we choose to live in.

I am asked why I live in the green mountains; I smile but reply not, for my heart is at rest. The flowing waters carry the image of the peach blossoms far, far away; there is an earth, there is a heaven, unknown to men.

Life and Death

The living are but passers-by,
And those are going home who die.
The sky and earth are hotels just
For all to grieve over age-old dust.
The Moon Goddess lives long in vain;
The sacred tree's cut down with pain.
The bleached bones can nor speak nor sing.
Could green pines feel the warmth of spring?
Ancestors and posterity,
Don't prize but sigh for vanity.

When the hunter sets traps only for rabbits, tigers and dragons are left uncaught.

The living is a passing traveler; The dead, a man come home.

He who neglects to drink of the spring of experience is likely to die of thirst in the desert of ignorance.

From the east a spring breeze is touching us,
passing by,
And so in the goblet in the green wine
tiny ripples are formed.
The blossoms stolen by the whirl
are falling to the earth.
My fair girl will be drunken soon
with her blushed cheeks.
Beside the blue pavilion the peach tree -
Do you know, how long it will bloom?
It's a trembling shine, a dream:
it cheats us and steals away.
Rise and dance!
The sun is fading!
Who never was full of demanding live
and crazy in his young days
will vainly - when the hair
is white - sigh and wail.

The world is like a great empty dream. Why should one toil away one's life?

In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;
The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,
While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,
Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees.

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.

You ask me why I dwell
amidst these jade-green hills?
I smile. No words can tell
the stillness in my heart.
Peach blossoms drift streamwater
away deep in mystery.
I live in the other world
one that lies beyond the human.

And sorrows return, though we drown them with wine,
Since the world can in no way answer our craving,
I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishingboat.

All this is gone forever - events, men. everything slips away, like the ceaseless waves of the Yangtze that vanish into the sea.

Beneath the blossoms with a pot of wine, No friends at hand, so I poured alone; I raised my cup to invite the moon, Turned to my shadow, and we became three.

AMUSING MYSELF

Facing my wine, I did not see the dusk,
Falling blossoms have filled the folds of my clothes.
Drunk, I rise and approach the moon in the stream,
Birds are far off, people too are few.

Heaven is high, Earth Wide. Bitter between them flies my sorrow.

The autumn air is clear,
The autumn moon is bright.
Fallen leaves gather and scatter,
The jackdaw perches and starts anew.
We think of each other- when will we meet?
This hour, this night, my feelings are hard.

To wash and rinse our souls of their age-old sorrows,
We drained a hundred jugs of wine.
A splendid night it was ...
In the clear moonlight we were loath to go to bed,
But at last drunkenness overtook us;
And we laid ourselves down on the empty mountain,
The earth for pillow, and the great heaven for coverlet

STAYING THE NIGHT AT A MOUNTAIN TEMPLE

The high tower is a hundred feet tall,
From here one's hand could pluck the stars.
I do not dare to speak in a loud voice,
I fear to disturb the people in heaven.

No one understands now. Those who could
hear a song this deeply vanished long ago.

On Drinking Alone by Moonlight


Here are flowers and here is wine,
But where's a friend with me to join
Hand in hand and heart to heart
In one full cup before we part?

Rather than to drink alone,
I'll make bold to ask the moon
To condescend to lend her face
The hour and the scene to grace.

Lo, she answers, and she brings
My shadow on her silver wings;
That makes three, and we shall be.
I ween, a merry company

The modest moon declines the cup,
But shadow promptly takes it up,
And when I dance my shadow fleet
Keeps measure with my flying feet.

But though the moon declines to tipple
She dances in yon shining ripple,
And when I sing, my festive song,
The echoes of the moon prolong.

Say, when shall we next meet together?
Surely not in cloudy weather,
For you my boon companions dear
Come only when the sky is clear.

To find pleasure in life, make the most of the spring.

ANCIENT AIR (39)

I climb up high and look on the four seas,
Heaven and earth spreading out so far.
Frost blankets all the stuff of autumn,
The wind blows with the great desert's cold.
The eastward-flowing water is immense,
All the ten thousand things billow.
The white sun's passing brightness fades,
Floating clouds seem to have no end.
Swallows and sparrows nest in the wutong tree,
Yuan and luan birds perch among jujube thorns.
Now it's time to head on back again,
I flick my sword and sing 'Taking the Hard Road'.

Tangled grasses lie matted with death,
but generals keep at it. And for what?
Isn't it clear that weapons are the tools of misery?
The great sages never waited until the need
for such things arose.

I lift my goblet to melt away sorrow,
but sorrow continues in sorrow.
Man's life in this world may never find
what satisfies the mind -
Tomorrow at dawn let your hair flow down,
For delight sail off in your tiny boat.

FOR WANG LUN

Li Bai is already on the boat, preparing to depart,
I suddenly hear the sound of stamping and singing on the shore.
The water of Taohua pond reaches a thousand feet in depth,
But still it's not as deep as Wang Lun's feelings seeing me off.

You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest,
and I smile, and am silent,
and even my soul remains quiet:
it lives in the other world
which no one owns.
The peach trees blossom,
The water flows.

From some home a jade flute sends dark notes drifting,
Scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-yang.
Tonight, if we should hear the willow-breaking song,
Who could help but long for the gardens of home?