Li Bai (Chinese: 李白, Lǐ Bái or Lǐ Bó; lived 701 – 762), also known in the West by various other transliterations, especially Li Po, was a major Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period. He has been regarded as one of the greatest poets in China's Tang period, which is often called China's "golden age" of poetry. Around a thousand existing poems are attributed to him, but the authenticity of many of these is uncertain. Thirty-four of his poems are included in the popular anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems.

 

In the area of Chinese cultural influence, Li Bai's poetry has been much esteemed from his lifetime through the present day. Indeed, in China he has been known as the best of the Romantic Poets. His influence also extends to the West through many translations, adaptations, and much inspiration.

 

The year of Li Bai's birth is known to be 701, however the location where is uncertain (although, apparently somewhere in Central Asia). Apparently, his family had originally dwelt in what is now southeastern Gansu, and later moved to Jiangyou, near modern Chengdu in Sichuan province, when he was perhaps five years old. Two accounts given by contemporaries Li Yangbing (Preface to the Thatched Cottage Collection) and Fan Chuanzheng (Tang's Zuo Sheyi Hanlin Xueshi Li Gong's Xin Mubei Bingxu) stated that his family was originally from what is now southeastern Gansu, as in the Xin Tangshu 215. The evidence suggests that during the Sui Dynasty, during the 610's, his ancestors, most likely as the result of some act of crime, were forced to relocate "incognito" from their original home in what is now Gansu to some location further west. Some believe that Li Bai's birthplace is Suiye in Central Asia (near modern-day Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan).

 

 

Li Po

 

Night Thoughts

 

Translator Herbert A. Giles

 

 

 

 

I wake, and moonbeams play around my bed,

 

Glittering like hoar-frost to my wandering eyes;

 

Up towards the glorious moon I raise my head,

 

Then lay me down - and thoughts of home arise.

 

 

 

 

 

Li Po

 

Clearing at Dawn

 

 

Translator Waley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fields are chill, the sparse rain has stopped;
The colours of Spring teem on every side.
With leaping fish the blue pond is full;
With singing thrushes the green boughs droop.
The flowers of the field have dabbled their powdered cheeks;
The mountain grasses are bent level at the waist.
By the bamboo stream the last fragment of cloud
Blown by the wind slowly scatters away.

 

 

Li Po

 

 

In the Mountains on a Summer Day

 

 

 

Translator Waley

 

 

 

Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head.

 

 

Li Po

 

 

 

 

 

To Tan-Ch'iu

 

 

 

Translator Waley

 

 

 

 

 

 

My friend is lodging high in the Eastern Range,
Dearly loving the beauty of valleys and hills.
At green Spring he lies in the empty woods,
And is still asleep when the sun shines on high.
A pine-tree wind dusts his sleeves and coat;
A pebbly stream cleans his heart and ears.
I envy you, who far from strife and talk
Are high-propped on a pillow of blue cloud.