Mao Zedong, besides his position as chairman, is widely recognized as a poet in China. His poems are full of vigour and confidence, and are recited and quoted all aroud the country.
The two poems presented here are considered to be the most popular (just my personal opinion though).
Changsha
(Changsha is the name of a city, and this poem was written in the autumn of 1925)
Alone I stand in the autumn cold
On the tip of Orange Island,
The Xiang flowing northward;
I see a thousand hills crimsoned through
By their serried woods deep-dyed,
And a hundred barges vying
Over crystal blue waters.
Eagles cleave the air,
Fish glide under the shallow water;
Under freezing skies a million creatures contend in freedom.
Brooding over this immensity,
I ask, on this bondless land
Who rules over man's destiny?
I was here with a throng of companions,
Vivid yet those crowded months and years.
Young we were, schoolmates,
At life's full flowering;
Filled with student enthusiasm
Boldly we cast all restraints aside.
Pointing to our mountains and rivers,
Setting people afire with our words,
We counted the mighty no more than muck.
Remember still
How, venturing midstream, we struck the waters
And the waves stayed the speeding boats?
Snow
(February 1936)
North country scene:
A hundred leagues locked in ice,
A thousand leagues of whirling snow.
Both side of the Great Wall
One single white immensity.
The Yellow River's swift current
Is stilled from end to end.
The mountains dance silver snakes
And the highland charge like wax-hued elephants.
Vying with heaven in stature.
On a fine day, the land,
Clad in white, adorned in red,
Crows more enchanting.
This land so rich in beauty
Has made countless heroes bow in homage.
But alas! Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi
Were lacking in literary grace,
And Tang Taizong and Song Taizu
Had little poetry in their souls;
That proud son of Heaven,
Genghis Khan,
Knew only shooting eagles, bow outstretched.
All are past and gone!
For truly great men
Look to this age alone.
(names mentioned in this poem:
Qin Shihuang : the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty[211 BC-206 BC], also the first in Chinese history.
Han Wudi: a great emperor in the Han Dynasty[206 BC-220 BC].
Tang Taizong : a great emperor in the Tang Dynasty[AD 618- 907], and maybe the greatest of all Chinese emperors.
Song Taizu: the first emperor of the Song Dynasty[960-1279])
