Poems of Mao

14. Three poems to the Mountains [1934-1935]

Three Poems to the Mountains

[three tsu pieces, to the melody The Sixteen-worder, Shih-liu-tsu Ling]

[translated by Nancy Lin]

Mountains!

Whip and spur, I keep to the saddle today.

I turn my head – lo!

The sky’s but three foot three away!

Mountains!

As upset seas with giant billows swirling,

You plunge headlong –

Myriad steeds into battle hurling!

Mountains!

You thrust into the blue with unblunted tops.

The sky is falling –

You are the props!

Notes [by Nancy Lin]

‘The sky’s but three foot three away’ is taken from a folksong, which the poet notes as follows:

“Mount Skull above, Mount Treasure below:

The sky’s but three foot three away.

Dismount if you come riding;

Head bent if you walk your way.”

Mount Treasure (Papaoshan) is situated near Liping on the southeast border of Kweichow, which the Red Army passed in December 1934.

Mountains, which constitute particularly the last sector of the Long March, are here taken as symbols of the revolutionary might of the Red Army and of the people at a time when the Japanese aggression was penetrating within the Great Wall and the struggle against Chiang Kai-shek was reaching its final intensity.

The first poem was apparently written in Kweichow, whereas the second and the third were written after the Red Army entered Szechuan.

The three, however, form a unified whole, climaxing in the last two lines.