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.