tres out of many, but enough perhaps to give
to any one who will read them with a pause or quasi-caesura, as marked
by o in each specimen, a fair idea of the rhythmic lilt of Chinese
poetry. To the trained ear, the effect is most pleasing; and when this
scansion, so to speak, is united with rhyme and choice diction, the
result is a vehicle for verse, artificial no doubt, and elaborate, but
admirably adapted to the genius of the Chinese language. Moreover, in
the hands of the great poets this artificiality disappears altogether.
Each word seems to slip naturally into its place; and so far from
having been introduced by violence for the ends of prosody, it appears
to be the very best word that could have been chosen, even had there
been no trammels of any kind, so effectually is the art of the poet
concealed by art. From the long string of names which have shed lustre
upon this glorious age of Chinese poetry, it may suffice for the
present purpose to mention the following, all of the very first rank.

Meng Hao-jan, A.D. 689-740, failed to succeed at the public
competitive examinations, and retired to the mountains where he led
the life of a recluse. Later on, he obtained an official post; but he
was of a timid disposition, and once when the emperor, attracted by
his fame, came to visit him, he hid himself under the bed. His
hiding-place was revealed by Wang Wei, a brother poet who was present.
The latter, A.D. 699-759, in addition to being a first-rank poet, was
also a landscape-painter of great distinction. He was further a firm
believer in Buddhism; and after losing his wife and mother, he turned
his mountain home into a Buddhist monastery. Of all poets, not one has
made his name more widely known than Li Po, or Li T'ai-po, A.D.
705-762, popularly known as the Banished Angel, so heavenly were the
poems he dashed off, always under the influence of wine. He is said to
have met his death, after a tipsy frolic, by leaning out of a boat to
embrace the reflection of the moon. Tu Fu, A.D. 712-770, is generally
ranked with Li Po, the two being jointly spoken of as the chief poets
of their age. The former had indeed such a high opinion of his own
poetry that he prescribed it for malarial fever. He led a chequered
and wandering life, and died from the effects of eating roast beef and
drinking white wine to excess, immediately after a long fast. Po
Chue-i, A.D. 7