FIR-FLOWER TABLETS. 



J. C. FERGUSON 



Mrs. Dargan has written in a recent poem : — 



Let us go on with experiments 

 Let us pore, and dream and do ; 

 Some day we may make a world 

 With a buttercup in it 

 Or a swallow's wing. 



Miss Lowell has made the great experiment: She has 

 pored and dreamed and done; out of the great number 

 of Chinese poetical effusions she has made a world for English 

 readers in which there are buttercups and a swallow's wing. 



Miss Lowell's approach to Chinese poetry, as explained 

 in her Preface, was four-fold. She had the Chinese text 

 before her with the sounds transliterated so that she could 

 follow the original metre and rhythm; the text was trans- 

 lated word by word ; the Chinese ideographs were analysed 

 as to form so that their derivation might contribute a share 

 to their meaning; and lastly the meaning of the text was 

 paraphrased for her by her friend Mrs. Ayscough with the 

 aid of her Chinese teacher, Mr. Nung Chu. This method, 

 though laborious, was sound. It was much more difficult 

 than that pursued by the English translators of Homer or 

 Virgil who could poetize directly from an original text and to 

 whom classical allusions and references were familiar. The 

 task was even greater than that which Shelley set for 

 himself in his version of "Prometheus Unbound" for Shelley 

 did not feel himself obliged to bring his drama to the same 

 conclusion as Aeschylus lest such a denouement should 

 shock his own sense of justice. Miss Lowell has been 

 content with the standards of the original Chinese versions, 

 and with setting these forth as accurately as possible. 



Miss Lowell followed a different method in "A Legend 

 of Porcelain" published early in 1921 in the volume 

 "Legends." She says that 'this poem was composed of 

 three legends which she read in some books that she cannot 



