Mount Wu is High (Li Ho; 719–817)

A cluster of emeralds
Piercing high heaven!
Over the Great River’s swelling waves
Spirits trail their mist.
The King of Chu’s soul sought a dream
In a bitter wind.
In dawn wind and flying rain,
Grow coins of moss.
The Jade Princess has been gone
A thousand years,
Amid lilac and Sichuan bamboos
Old gibbons wail,
Her ancient shrine is close to the moon’s
Chill toad and cassia,
Pepper flowers shed scarlet petals
Among drenching clouds.

• Mount Wu, a famous twelve-peaked range, rises up on the northern banks of the Yangzi and stretches from Sichuan to Hubei. It was on this mountain that Jade Beauty, daughter of the legendary Scarlet Emperor, was buried, thus becoming its tutelary deity. King Huai of Chu (floruit 3rd century B.C.) once spent the night with her, not knowing who she was. When she left him she told him that in the morning she took the form of clouds on Mount Wu, in the evening she marshalled the rain. Huai’s son, King Hsiang, had the same experience. (Footnote courtesy http://www.shigeku.org/xlib/lingshidao/hanshi/lihe.htm)