Li Po is China's prince of vagabond poets, with his drink, his dread of officialdom, his companionship with the moon, his love of high mountain scenery, and his constant aspiration: Oh, could I but hold a celestial sword / And stab a whale across the seas! Li Po's romanticism ended finally in his death from reaching for the shadow of the moon in the water in a drunken fit and falling overboard. Good, infinitely good, that the staid and apparently unfeeling Chinese could sometimes reach for the shadow of the moon and die such a poetic death!
About This Quote
About Li Bai
Li Bai was a medieval Chinese poet. Li Bai also known by his courtesy name of Taibai (太白) was a Chinese poet acclaimed as one of the best and most important poets of the Tang dynasty, and even in the whole of Chinese poetry. He and his friends such as Du Fu (712–770) were among the prominent figures in the flourishing of Chinese poetry of the Tang dynasty, often called the "Golden Age of Chinese Poetry". Read more on Wikipedia →