(_Part of a Poem in Irregular Metre._)
On through the night I flew, high over the Mirror Lake. The lake-moon
cast my shadow on the waves and travelled with me to the stream of
Shan. The Lord Hsieh’s[43] lodging-place was still there. The blue
waters rippled; the cry of the apes was shrill. I shod my feet with
the shoes of the Lord Hsieh and “climbed to Heaven on a ladder of dark
clouds.”[44] Half-way up, I saw the unrisen sun hiding behind the sea
and heard the Cock of Heaven crowing in the sky. By a thousand broken
paths I twisted and turned from crag to crag. My eyes grew dim. I
clutched at the rocks, and all was dark.
[43] Hsieh Ling-yün (_circa_ A.D. 400) was a famous mountain-climber
who invented special mountain-climbing shoes.
[44] A quotation from one of Hsieh’s poems.
The roaring of bears and the singing of dragons echoed amid the stones
and streams. The darkness of deep woods made me afraid. I trembled at
the storied cliffs.
The clouds hung dark, as though they would rain; the air was dim with
the spray of rushing waters.
Lightning flashed: thunder roared. Peaks and ridges tottered and broke.
Suddenly the walls of the hollow where I stood sundered with a crash,
and I looked down on a bottomless void of blue, where the sun and moon
gleamed on a terrace of silver and gold.
A host of Beings descended--Cloud-spirits, whose coats were made of
rainbow and the horses they rode on were the winds.