chapter ii

., who is associated with Shun in China’s Golden Age:--

“_With trembling heart and cautious steps Walk daily in fear of God ... Though you never trip over a mountain, You may often trip over a clod._”

There is also the husbandman’s song, which enlarges upon the national happiness of those halcyon days:--

“_Work, work;--from the rising sun Till sunset comes and the day is done I plough the sod And harrow the clod, And meat and drink both come to me, So what care I for the powers that be?_”

[Sidenote: INSCRIPTIONS]

It seems to have been customary in early days to attach inscriptions, poetical and otherwise, to all sorts of articles for daily use. On the bath-tub of T‘ang, founder of the Shang dynasty in B.C. 1766, there was said to have been written these words:--“If any one on any one day can make a new man of himself, let him do so every day.” Similarly, an old metal mirror bore as its legend, “Man combs his hair every morning: why not his heart?” And the following lines are said to be taken from an ancient wash-basin:--

“_Oh, rather than sink in the world’s foul tide I would sink in the bottomless main; For he who sinks in the world’s foul tide In noisome depths shall for ever abide, But he who sinks in the bottomless main May hope to float to the surface again._”

In this class of verse, too, the metre is often irregular and the rhyme a mere jingle, according to the canons of the stricter prosody which came into existence later on.

##