In the bright dawn clouds I left Baidicheng;
Thousand kms’ journey to Jiangling only takes a day.
I hear the incessant cry of monkeys from the banks;
My light barge has passed countless folds of hills.
Beautiful lines like these are what one would recite whenever the name of the great Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai crops up. His poems always radiate a spirit that could conquer mountains and rivers, and the wonderful carefree mood of unrestrained spontaneity they exude.
Li Bai lived in the 8th century when the great Tang Dynasty was passing the most prosperous period in history. Like thunder and storm, like bells and chimes, Li Bai's poems rang out a resonant note of that era.
Don't you see the Yellow River's waters
Descend from Heaven,
Rushing seawards, never to return?
One day I'll skim the waves, blown by the wind,
With sails hoisted high, across the vast ocean.
Li Bai's legendary life was very colorful. He came from a merchant family in a city in central Asia on the ancient Silk Road, the westernmost town of the Tang Dynasty. When Li Bai was 5 his father took him back to Sichuan to live in present-day Jiangyou Town, Sichuan Province. As Taoism was very popular then, Li Bai read much Taoist literature. Confucian education was added to his Western Regions upbringing. He read miscellaneous books by political strategists too. Li Bai described himself as: "I began to read at 5, and read widely at 10." "At 15, I scanned exotic books and wrote verses better than some scholars."
Li Bai was also a great traveler; his journey covered major parts of China. He wrote in his poems: "I go far to the Five Sacred Mountains to seek immortals. Touring famous mountains is my aspiration." His poems highly praised the beautiful landscapes like Yellow Mountain, Lushan, Taishan and Tianmu mountains, the Yellow River, Yangtze Rivers, and Dongting Lake etc. His vivid description brought great fames to these places, which became hot resorts frequently visited ever since by men of letters.
Li Bai enjoyed a great fame as a young promising poet at his early age. As soon as he arrived at the capital Chang'an he showed his poems to a well-known poet He Zhizhang. Struck by the very first line in Li Bai's "The Sichuan Road"
It's easier to climb to Heaven
Than take the Sichuan Road.
, the elderly poet wondered if Li Bai had come from another world. He called him "poet immortal", a name that stuck to Li Bai all his life.
Li Bai won not only the hearts of readers at his time; his name, a very resonant name, and his poems, have always inspired people for the past 1,200 years and more. He is the most read poet by contemporary readers.
Li Bai, a great Tang-dynasty poet, eulogized his majestic motherland and loved the people living on this piece of land. He wandered around the country, and recorded in his immortal poems his deep feelings for the beautiful life.
I'm on board； we're about to sail
When there's stamping and singing on shore;
Peach Blossom Pool is a thousand feet deep,
Yet not as deep as your friendship, Mr. Wang Lun, towards me.
In his poems, man and nature are a harmonious whole, each having a deep affection for the other.
Only Mount Jingting and me will never be tired of each other.
Dusk falls on the green hills and the moon follows me home.
I raise my cup to invite the moon and we are three as my shadow included.
In front of waterfalls in Mount Lushan, Li Bai wrote these famous lines:
Down the water cascades 3,000 feet,
As if the Milk Way falling from Heaven!
He described the cold weather of the north with "Snowflakes on Yanshan Mountains are the size of mats." He depicted the rugged mountain roads in Sichuan as "harder than climbing to Heaven." His lines "Cut water with a sword, the water flows on；quench sorrow with wine, the sorrow increases" showed his grief of having "white hair 3,000 meters long".
His poems are natural and smooth, and beautiful and clean as a lotus flower rising out of water.
Li Bai is another great romantic poet after Qu Yuan in the Warring States period. His poems are valuable spiritual wealth of the Chinese people. Li Bai's poems have been translated into many languages and read and loved by people abroad. Western musicians set his poems to symphonies and play them to a wide audience.
Beside my bed a pool of light,
Is it hoarfrost on the ground?
I lift my eyes and see the moon,
I fall communed with myself and become homesick.
People away from home often recite this poem by Li Bai. Han Yu, well-known literati of the Tang Dynasty, once said: "The writings of Li Bai and Du Fu never lose their charm, radiating rays of light a hundred thousand feet high." Li Bai and his poems have merged with the spirit of the Chinese nation.