The Ruins of Lo-Yang
I climb to the ridge of Pei Mang MountainAnd look down on the city of Lo-yang.In Lo-yang how still it is!Palaces and houses all burnt to ashes.Walls and fences all broken and gaping,Thorns and brambles shooting up to the sky.I do not see the old old-men:I only see the new young men.I turn aside, for the straight road is lost:The fields are overgrown and will never be ploughed again.I have been away such a long timeThat I do not know which street is which.How sad and ugly the empty moors are!A thousand miles without the smoke of a chimney.I think of the house I lived in all those years:I am heart-tied and cannot speak.
“Wondrous was the wall-stone,Weirdly broken;Burgh-steads bursten,Giants’ work tumbleth,Roofs are wrenched,Towers totter,Bereft of rune-gates.Smoke is on the plaster,Scarred the shower-burghs,Shorn and shattered,By eld under-eaten.Earth’s grip havethWealders and workmen.”
Words in this poem
- yang n.
- The cry of the wild goose; a honk. [Of imitative origin.]
- chimney n.
- A fireplace or hearth. Sir W. Raleigh.
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Ruins of Lo-Yang is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, The Ruins of Lo-Yang, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/the-ruins-of-lo-yang.html, id L18769.
Form and metre
The Ruins of Lo-Yang is 29 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.5 syllables. 12 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -ABBA-CC-C------ mountain · yangA · isB · ashesB · gapingA · sky · menC · menC · lost · againC · time · which · are · chimney · years · speak
- 2 AA----------- stoneA · brokenA · bursten · tumbleth · wrenched · totter · gates · plaster · burghs · shattered · eaten · haveth · workmen
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I climb to the ridge of Pei Mang Mountain | 10 | ········/˘ |
| And look down on the city of Lo-yang. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| In Lo-yang how still it is! | 7 | ······· |
| Palaces and houses all burnt to ashes. | 11 | /˘˘·/˘···/˘ |
| Walls and fences all broken and gaping, | 10 | ··/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Thorns and brambles shooting up to the sky. | 10 | ··/˘/˘···· |
| I do not see the old old-men: | 8 | ········ |
| I only see the new young men. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I turn aside, for the straight road is lost: | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| The fields are overgrown and will never be ploughed again. | 14 | ····˘/··/˘··˘/ |
| I have been away such a long time | 9 | ···˘/···· |
| That I do not know which street is which. | 9 | ········· |
| How sad and ugly the empty moors are! | 10 | ···/˘·/˘·· |
| A thousand miles without the smoke of a chimney. | 12 | ·/˘·······/˘ |
| I think of the house I lived in all those years: | 11 | ··········· |
| I am heart-tied and cannot speak. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| “Wondrous was the wall-stone, | 6 | /˘···· |
| Weirdly broken; | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| Burgh-steads bursten, | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Giants’ work tumbleth, | 6 | /˘·/˘˘ |
| Roofs are wrenched, | 3 | ··· |
| Towers totter, | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| Bereft of rune-gates. | 5 | ˘/··· |
| Smoke is on the plaster, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Scarred the shower-burghs, | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Shorn and shattered, | 4 | ··/˘ |
| By eld under-eaten. | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Earth’s grip haveth | 4 | ···· |
| Wealders and workmen.” | 5 | ···/˘ |
Notes from the edition 2
Arthur Waley's notes to A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918; Project Gutenberg #42290).
- Stanza 2, line 2 By Fate.
- Stanza 2, line 13 Rulers.
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.