Five-Character Ancient Style · In Praise of the Balsam Flower [1]

(1907)

All flowers vie for spring’s delight,
The balsam alone in stillness sleeps.
In spring its leaves begin to sprout,
In blazing summer its blooms are bright.
Its leaves are small, its branches frail,
Its kinds are many and fair to see.
Ten thousand plants bow to the rising sun,
Only this maid defies the fiery sky.
Yuanming loved the carefree chrysanthemum [2],

[1] In his youth, Mao Zedong composed this poem while visiting and admiring flowers at the Bao’an Temple near his maternal grandmother’s home in Tangjiatuo. The poem uses flowers to express his aspirations, revealing Mao’s tenacious and extraordinary ambition and spiritual realm. The poem demonstrates considerable technical maturity in composition, indicating that the young Mao already possessed a solid literary foundation in poetic creation. Balsam flower, scientific name Impatiens balsamina. An annual herbaceous plant that blooms in summer, with many varieties, cultivated for ornamental purposes. Both the flowers and seeds can be used medicinally. The crushed flowers can be used to dye fingernails, hence the name balsam flower.

[2] Yuanming, namely Tao Yuanming. Yuanming loved the carefree chrysanthemum. Tao Yuanming’s poems repeatedly mention chrysanthemums. “Drinking Wine” (Poem 5): “I pluck chrysanthemums beneath the eastern hedge, / And gaze afar toward the southern mountains,” is one of his famous lines. Carefree, meaning reclusive. A recluse is one who lives in seclusion. The chrysanthemum emits its delicate fragrance alone when many flowers and plants have withered, just as a recluse, unwilling to associate with the rulers, withdraws from the world and lives in seclusion.

Dunyi loved the green lotus [1].
I alone love the balsam,
Taking its resolve as the stronger.

[1] Dunyi, namely Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073), a Northern Song philosopher. Courtesy name Maoshu, a native of Yingdao, Daozhou (present-day Dao County, Hunan). He once served as an assistant to the Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review and as an Erudite of the National University. Because he built a study beside a stream at the foot of Lotus Peak on Mount Lu and named it after his hometown Lianxi Stream, later generations called him Master Lianxi. Zhou Dunyi loved the green lotus and wrote the essay “On the Love of the Lotus,” in which he praises the lotus: “I alone love the lotus that emerges from the mud yet remains unstained, bathed in clear ripples yet not seductive; hollow inside and straight outside, with no tendrils or branches; its fragrance spreads farther and becomes purer; standing tall and clean, it can be viewed from afar but not trifled with.” He also said: “The lotus is the gentleman among flowers.”