One day, I was travelling far away
Across the three decades
Of high hills and low-lying dales
To see a dragon in its torsion.
That was the depth -- so sombre
And slippery place, the gloomy vale
Where the dragon was softly humming
Its sibilant song, and where the tiger
Patiently waited for its prey
With roaring and growling,
And where life's primitive forces
Unfolded themselves, and where
The chief of the underworld,
Almighty Yama, inhabited
And run the whole show to his best.
The dragon first hid itself
In its underground cave
In its position of preparation
Prior to active motion.
Upon its emerging in the field,
The diffusion of virtuous influence
Was spread far and wide throughout
All the quarters under the sky.
Since it represented the strengths
Of Heaven and Earth,
When its horned head appeared first,
Its scaly tail still was hidden in deeps.
It coiled itself up,
And there was its colubrine body;
It then unfolded itself in full accord
With a dictate of the time and thus
Became the completely retold story:
It had the head of a horse,
The horns of a deer, the claws of a cock,
The scale of a giant fish and the tail
Of a serpent itself. Still, it was uncertain
About its leaping up or diving
Into the deepest spring. . .
Its voice resounded as thunder
When it suddenly gained altitude
And on the wing in the sky
Started to be profoundly still,
As its position on high clearly confirmed
The virtuous nature of its attainments
Balanced against the lower place
Of the masses of the snakes
Crawled in the mud below and which
Moulted their skin in a superficial change,
Fearing all living beings by their venom.
Upon riding on the clouds in mid air
The dragon was nourished there
By the Yin and Yang. However,
The result of those transformations
Could not be foreseen, as it was difficult
To determine it deliberately.
Thus it ascended to the heavens
Exceeding all limits and getting extremity;
Hence its regrets in the aftermath --
Its current course simply came to its end
To be never arisen again.
Watching all that process of changing,
I kept my mouth open and thus was unable
To shut it a long time. As a result, this piece
Of my primitive poetry has come to life
To be for your, my friend, benign perusal.
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Love ya!
Jane