HU Shih (1891-1962), who wrote this poem, studied in the United States and was a key figure in Chinese literature and scholarship in the twentieth century. The piece is included in a magisterial new volume, entitled, with irony, The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature, edited by Yunte Huang, a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara (W W Norton, £26).

DREAM AND POETRY

All is commonplace experience,

All is commonplace impression.

By chance they rush into a dream

They are transformed into many new patterns.

All is commonplace sentiment,

All is commonplace word.

By chance they meet a poet

They are transformed into many new poems.

Only after being drunk does one know the wine is strong,

Only after having loved does one know the depth of love.

You can never write my poems,

I can never dream your dreams.