Ch’ēn Tzŭ-ang

Ch’ēn Tzŭ-ang (AD 656–698) was famous for impromptu descriptive verse of the kind the Chinese call “Ying.” His passionate disposition brought him into trouble with the magistrate of his district, who had him cast into prison, where he died at the age of forty-two.

The poems here are Arthur Waley’s version in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918); L. Cranmer-Byng’s version in A Lute of Jade (1909), given with the poet’s name as spelled in those books.