Poems of Mao

17. Mount Liupan [October 1935]

Mount Liupan

[a tsu, to the melody Tranquilized Notes, Ching-ping Yueh]

[translated by Nancy Lin]

The sky vaults high;

Clouds are light.

Wild geese flying south

Pass out of sight.

We’ve scored a march of twenty thousand li.

We shall the Great Wall reach,

Or no true soldiers be!

On top of Mount Liupan,

In the west wind’s lap,

Red flags now freely

Flutter and flap.

The Long Cord in our hands at last –

When shall be the day

That we bind the Green Dragon fast?

Notes [by Nancy Lin]

The Great Wall: stands for the frontline of resistance against the Japanese invaders.

Green Dragon: alludes to Chiang Kai-shek, who, rather than Japan, so the poet said in a note in 1958, was engaging the immediate attention of the Red Army at the moment.

From Minshan, the Long March entered Kansu Province. Mount Liupan, running between Kansu and Ningsia with its principal peak towering 3,500 meters above sea level, is the last high mountain the Red Army had to cross before reaching its destination in north Shensi. Surveying the landscape from the heights here in early October, the poet was taking a pause, as it were, to sum up the course of the journey so far and give a pointer on the next move.