Manchouli, William Empson’s China Poems #1

Posted: April 26th, 2024 | No Comments »

The following short poem by Empson (1906-1984) is from his 1940 collection, The Gathering Storm (London: Faber & Faber). The poems in the collection were written between Empson’s time in Japan around 1933 and then in China, around 1939. Empson had been given a three-year contract to teach at Peking University but, upon arrival discovered that, due to the Japanese invasion of China, he no longer had a post. He joined the exodus of the university’s staff to Kunking and the hastily organised Lianda (Southwest Associated University). At some point Empson passed through Manchouli (Manzhouli) on the Russo-Inner Mongolian border….

Manchouli

I find it normal, passing these great frontiers,

That you scan the crowds in rags eagerly each side

With awe; that the nations seem real; that their ambitions

Having such achieved variety within one type, seem sane;

I find it normal;

So too to extract false comfort from that word.

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