The Waters of Lung-T’Ou (The North-West Frontier)
The road that I came by mounts eight thousand feet:The river that I crossed hangs a hundred fathoms.The brambles so thick that in summer one cannot pass!The snow so high that in winter one cannot climb!With branches that interlace Lung Valley is dark:Against cliffs that tower one’s voice beats and echoes.I turn my head, and it seems only a dreamThat I ever lived in the streets of Hsien-yang.
Words in this poem
- hsien n.
- An administrative subdivision of a fu, or department, or of an independent chow; also, the seat of government of such a district.
- yang n.
- The cry of the wild goose; a honk. [Of imitative origin.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Waters of Lung-T’Ou (The North-West Frontier) 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 Waters of Lung-T’Ou (The North-West Frontier), in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/the-waters-of-lung-t-ou-the-north-west-frontier.html, id L18807.
Form and metre
The Waters of Lung-T’Ou (The North-West Frontier) is 8 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.9 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The road that I came by mounts eight thousand feet: | 11 | ········/˘· |
| The river that I crossed hangs a hundred fathoms. | 12 | ·/˘·····/˘/˘ |
| The brambles so thick that in summer one cannot pass! | 13 | ·/˘····/˘·˘/· |
| The snow so high that in winter one cannot climb! | 12 | ······/˘·˘/· |
| With branches that interlace Lung Valley is dark: | 12 | ·/˘··˘/·/˘·· |
| Against cliffs that tower one’s voice beats and echoes. | 12 | ····/˘····/˘ |
| I turn my head, and it seems only a dream | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| That I ever lived in the streets of Hsien-yang. | 12 | ··/˘·˘······ |
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.