Only the lonely fox is red,
Black but the crow-flight overhead.
You who gave me your heart --
The chariot creaks to depart.
Is this a time for delay?
Now, while we may,
Let us away.

Perhaps these Odes may best be compared with the little craftless figures
in an early age of pottery, when the fragrance of the soil
yet lingered about the rough clay. The maker of the song was a poet,
and knew it not. The maker of the bowl was an artist, and knew it not.
You will get no finish from either -- the lines are often blurred,
the design but half fulfilled; and yet the effect is not inartistic.
It has been well said that greatness is but another name for interpretation;
and in so far as these nameless workmen of old interpreted themselves
and the times in which they lived, they have attained enduring greatness.




Poetry before the T`angs



Following on the Odes, we have much written in the same style,
more often than not by women, or songs possibly written to be sung by them,
always in a minor key, fraught with sadness, yet full of quiet resignation
and pathos.