Poems of Mao

5. Double-Nine Festival [October 1929]

Double-Nine Festival

[a tsu, to the melody The Mulberry-leaf Gatherer, Tsai Sang Tsu.]

[Translated by Nancy Lin]

Age tells on man, but scarcely on nature:

Ever a Double Nine each year.

Here’s the Double Nine again.

Chrysanthemums seen at the battle-front

Seem so much the lovelier!

Once more the autumn wind blows with rigor.

Unlike spring.

Better than spring! –

Silver frost, thousands of miles on;

A cerulean sky, one with the river!

Notes [by Nancy Lin]

Double-Nine Festival: so-called because it falls on the 9^th day of the 9^th moon, lunar calendar – popularly the day for scaling heights and flying kites. It has been associated for centuries with chrysanthemums (i.e. Huanghua, yellow flowers) – a favorite theme for poets, who sing of ‘the lone fragrance in late autumn’ and think of home and friends in ‘days of wind and rain’.

Mao comes up with this piece in a totally new spirit. Traditional motifs for a poem on the Double-Nine Day – chrysanthemum flowers, autumn wind, frosty sky, etc. – have one and all acquired an ineffable aura of stout beauty and strength in the hand of a revolutionist who finds joy in struggle and sees unlimited prospects in trying circumstances.

[cerulean: sky-blue]