Upon the scented balustrade and glow
With spring that thrills her warm blood into wine.

Once, and once alone, the artist in Ming Huang was merged in the Emperor.
In that supreme crisis of the empire and a human soul,
when the mutinous soldiers were thronging about the royal tent
and clamouring for the blood of the favourite, it was the Emperor
who sent her forth --

lily pale,
Between tall avenues of spears, to die.

Policy, the bane of artists demanded it, and so, for the sake
of a thousand issues and a common front to the common foe,
he placed the love of his life upon the altar of his patriotism, and went,
a broken-hearted man, into the long exile. From that moment the Emperor died.
History ceases to take interest in the crownless wanderer.
His return to the place of tragedy, and on to the capital
where the deserted palace awaits him with its memories,
his endless seeking for the soul of his beloved, her discovery
by the priest of Tao in that island of P`eng Lai where --

gaily coloured towers
Rise up like rainbow clouds, and many gentle
And beautiful Immortals pass their days in peace,

her message to her lover with its splendid triumphant note of faith
foretelling their reunion at the last -- in fine, the story of their love
with the grave between them -- is due to the genius of Po Chu-i.
And to all poets coming after, these two lovers have been types