Dragons

A beautiful old Chinese myth.

In the year of the Jade Emperor,

In the time of the people’s pain,

The sun was hot, the people groaned

The sky gave up no rain;

‘The sky gave up no rain,’ he said,

‘The ground was dry as a bone,

There were no rivers or lakes to feed

The crops that the people owned.

The rice lay waste in the paddy fields,

The people ate bark and clay,

While on the shores of the Eastern Sea

Four dragons laughed and played.’

 

‘These creatures, made of snake and claw,

Of horn, and fire and scale,

Looked down to see the people pray,

To hear the people wail,

So Black, and Yellow, Long and Pearl,

For these were the dragons’ names,

Felt sad for the people’s plight, and said,

'We must bring on the rain!'

Without the rain, the people die,

They are so poor and thin,

We needs must enter at Heaven’s Gate

So He will intervene!’

 

They flew to the Jade Emperor

Who promised to send them rain,

But then sat back with his minstrel songs,

Forgot the people’s pain.

For ten long days the dragons paused

To wait the darkening clouds,

But only saw the people cry,

Lay out their dead in shrouds.

'They laid their dead in shrouds,’ he said,

‘The lastborn to the first,

The dragons said, 'He heeds us not,

Won’t slake the people’s thirst.' '

 

The dragons flew to the Eastern Sea,

They knew it would bring them pain,

But to ease the hurt of the brown, dead earth

What else, but the soothing rain?

Now, dragons’ care for man’s despair,

His hopes, his joys, his tears,

They send their many blessings down,

Relieve the people’s fears.

They flew on out to the Eastern Sea

Its waters so clear and deep,

They flung it up to the heavens high

That what they’d sow, they’d reap.’

 

Then down it came in a storm of rain

That fed the people’s joy,

They laughed aloud at this water cloud

That the dragons had employed.

The moment the Jade Emperor

By the Sea God was informed,

He stamped and raged, and bellowed loud

That he would not be scorned!

He called his Generals and his troops,

To make the dragons’ answer,

Then called the Mountain God to him

To lie on them forever!

 

Caught fast beneath a mountain each

The dragons still were glad,

They’d saved the people from their pain,

The price they paid was sad;

But not unbearable, they thought,

So Long, and Black and Yellow,

With Pearl, devised another plan

That they might ever follow.

They turned their tails to rivers wide

To flow across each valley,

From West to East, the Long, the Black,

The Pearl flows, and the Yellow.

 

Four dragons’ once, that cared for man,

Four dragons’ spread their tails,

They fed the crops that man might eat,

Might sing or dance, not wail;

The Heilongjiang is River Black,

The Dragon of the north,

And south of him, the Huanghe flows,

The Yellow Dragon’s course;

The Yangtze is the Dragon Long,

The Changjiang, to the mouth,

While Pearl is now the Zhujiang,

The Dragon of the south.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Thorn]

I like the rhythm. It flows very nicely, just like the rivers that the dragons become.

But I have one concern: in the second verse, it says "we needs must enter Heaven's gate".
Needs must? Is that right?