Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 31. The River and the Sea

THE RIVER AND THE SEA

This ballad is a reworked version of a small part of a chapter (Autumn Floods) from a famous philosophic Taoist book known as the book of Zhuang Zhou or Chang Tzu. It was attributed to its namesake though no one knows if he was real and, even if he was, how much of it was written by other hands. This small fable illustrates the "relativity" of size and importance. 


 

MA YUAN STUDIES OF WATER "The Yellow River Breaches its course"

                    THE RIVER AND THE SEA

after Chung Tzu

The time of autumn floods arrived,

The ponds and lakes filled to the brim.

The spirit of the river thrived-

All smaller streams ran into him.

He grew so mighty and so wide,

So brown and powerful, hour by hour,

That gazing to his other side

You couldn't make out horse from cow.

The river spirit laughed with joy

To think how this was his great day:

All in his path was but his toy

To carry off on his wild way.

For forest leaf and broken branch,

And fences that were not too strong,

And beasts, that by unlucky chance

Had fallen in, were born along.

And so he raced on, brown and wide,

A deep, wild torrent through the land,

Until he reached the ocean side,

And slowed to see what was at hand.

He looked out at the endless waves,

The vast, deep sea spread far and long,

As far and further than his gaze,

Right to the sky's edge and beyond.

"Oh, dear," the river spirit sighed,

"I thought I carved a mighty course,

I thought myself so deep and wide,

But now I see how small my force!"

He called to the spirit of the ocean,

"Those with a hundred thoughts may chance

To think they know, without a notion,

Of what is meant by life's expanse!"

The spirit of the sea replied,

"How can one talk of ocean to

The frogs who croak by puddle side,

And soak up morning's grassy dew?"

"How can one talk of mountains to

The ants who think their nest is high?

How can one speak of sky's vast blue

To some pond-skimming dragonfly?"

"Of all the waters of the world

The ocean is the greatest one.

On every shore my power's unfurled

By waves that crash beneath the sun."

"And all the rivers of the earth

Flow into me, both day and night.

And though they flow for all they're worth,

I'm never filled- great is my might!"

And through the sun's great heating rays

I give my moisture to the sky

To make the clouds, through all the days,

And yet I never shall run dry!"

"Much greater than all other waters,

Beyond all measure greater! Yet

Do I boast to the wind's four quarters?

For what am I? For I am set

And shaped within the greater world;

And from the balancing of forces

Is all my vital power unfurled-

And I am small before those sources.

For in the universe so vast

I am indeed a tiny stone;

Or on a high, wide mountain's cast,

I am a small tree: bowed, alone.

Thus conscious of these things I say

I grasp my smallness in the all

Of All, the unseen Ever-Way.

How can I boast when I am small?