Alarm at First Entering the Yang-tze Gorges

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:
Weak, the dangerous hold of the towers’ feet.
A single slip--the whole convoy lost:
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!