{"collection":"cfu","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cfu/bop/bop204.htm","path":"cfu/bop/bop204.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cfu/bop/bop204.htm","text":"The Book of Poetry, tr. by James Legge, [1876]\n2His creatures, impotent and vain,\n \u00a0\u00a0Now chime, now chafe, in rival mood.\n The case deserves our saddest strain!\n \u00a0\u00a0If one proposes aught that's good,\n Against it all are firmly bound;\n If bad, then all will rally round.\n \u00a0\u00a0Where will it end?\u2014I sadly brood. p. 251\n3Our wearied oracles are dumb,\n \u00a0\u00a0And silence keep when we consult.\n Our counselors still thronging come,\n \u00a0\u00a0With counsels barren of result.\n Though full the court, none dares to do;\n We plan the way we ne\u2019er pursue,\n \u00a0\u00a0And halting, helpless still we halt.\n4Ah me! the men who lead the state,\n \u00a0\u00a0Forsake the wisdom of the past.\n Unruled by maxims wise and great,\n \u00a0\u00a0They veer with every fitful blast.\n They cannot on themselves rely.\n Builders, they ask each passer-by,\n \u00a0\u00a0And leave their work undone at last.\n5Unsettled though the land we see,\n \u00a0\u00a0The many foolish, some are wise;\n And scanty though the people be,\n \u00a0\u00a0Yet some can see, and some devise. p. 252\n Some gravely think, and some have tact;\n Yet borne upon the cataract,\n \u00a0\u00a0We sink in ruin, ne\u2019er to rise.\n6Who dares unarmed the tiger face?\n \u00a0\u00a0Who boatless dares to tempt the Ho?\n E\u2019en their small wits see such a case,\n \u00a0\u00a0But nothing greater do they know.\n With fear and caution should we tread,\n Like men above some torrent's bed,\n \u00a0\u00a0Or those upon thin ice who go.","title":"The Book of Poetry: Book V. The Decade of Hsiao Min: I. Hsiao Min","type":"page"}