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The People's Liberation Army Captures Nanking

Poems | Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung

THE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY CAPTURES NANKING

--a lu shih

April 1949

Over Chungshan swept a storm, headlong,
Our mighty army, a million strong, has crossed the Great River.
The City, a tiger crouching, a dragon curling, outshines its ancient glories;
In heroic triumph heaven and earth have been overturned.
With power and to spare we must pursue the tottering foe
And not ape Hsiang Yu the conqueror seeking idle fame.
Were Nature sentient, she too would pass from youth to age,
But Man's world is mutable, seas become mulberry fields.

Poems | Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung

Source: marxists.org — original. Shared freely for study.