<Header>
<Author: 白居易>
<Title: 秘省後廳>
<Format: 五言絕句>
<Year: 1919>
<BookName: Translation from the Chinese>
<Translator: Arthur Waley>
<TranslatedTitle: Alarm at First Entering the Yang-Tze Gorges>
<BookPage: 212>
<UsedPage: 1>
<Feature: 4>
<End Header>
<Poem>

<End Poem>
<Translation>
Above, a mountain ten thousand feet high:
Below, a river a thousand fathoms deep.
A strip of green, walled by cliffs of stone:
Wide enough for the passage of a single reed.
At Chü-t'ang a straight cleft yawns:
At Yen-yü islands block the stream.
Long before night the walls are black with dusk;
Without wind white waves rise.
The big rocks are like a flat sword:
The little rocks resemble ivory tusks.
We are stuck fast and cannot move a step.
How much the less, three hundred miles?
Frail and slender, the twisted bamboo rope:
A single slip－the whole convoy lost:
Weak, the dangerous hold of the towers' feet.
And my life hangs on this thread!
I have heard a saying "He that has an upright heart
Shall walk scathless through the lands of Man and Mo".
How can I believe that since the world began
In every shipwreck none have drowned but rogues?
And how can I, born in evil days
And fresh from failure, ask a kindness of Fate?
Often I fear that these un-talented limbs
Will be laid at last in an un-named grave!
<End Translation>