The Red Cockatoo - Poem by Po Chu-i

I could equally have put this in my other blog, given the content, but I've decided to post it here.

I can't remember when I came on Arthur Waley's translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. I'm pretty sure it was before I discovered Haiku, that wonderfully terse poetic form. I have a copy of his "170 Chinese Poems

" in an edition published in 1928, although the book was first published in 1918. My copy is rather pleasingly inscribed as being awarded for "First Prize Slow Foxtrot".

The poem I want to share is by a poet called Po Chü-i. There is a very brief biography of him in the book.

The Red Cockatoo

Sent as a present from Annam-

A red cockatoo.

Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,

Speaking with the speech of men.

And they did to it what is always done

To the learned and eloquent.

They took a cage with stout bars

And shut it inside.