Short Poems

The rotten-wooded willow
At the road side
When Spring comes,
Yearns bitterly for old times.

On to my high roof
Climbing, when I look out
(I see) smoke rising:
The people's kitchens
Are in a flourishing condition!

The timber-river's
Raft's bottom's
Floating pillow
In summer a cool
Bed-chamber becomes.

To what shall I compare
This world?
To the white wake behind
A ship that has rowed away

There in her moonlit chamber she is dreaming of him still:
How delicate the willows, how languorous the spring!
In the grasses growing thick outside the gate
She hears his horse neigh as she waves goodbye.
By her colored quilt with kingfishers worked in gold
The scented candle has melted into tears.
Among the falling blossoms a nightjar cries —
And behind her green-gauze window the dream dissolves.

Blue tail-feathers and markings of gold on a pair of mandarin ducks,
And tiny ripples of water stirring the blue of a pond in spring;
Beside the pond there stands a crabapple tree,
Its branches filled with pink after the rain
Her figured sleeve covers a dimpled smile
As a flying butterfly lights on the mistlike grass.
Her window gives on all this loveliness —
And news so seldom comes from the Jade Pass!

Willow
Willow,
At dusk standing by the White Sand Ford.
Ahead of the boat, the river waters are so vast:
The merchant and young woman are heartbroken.
Heartbroken
Heartbroken,
Partridges flying at night miss their mates.

Yesterday morning I went early to bid farewell to the traveling man,
The fifth watch was not yet over; the golden cock crowed.
We parted, and he passed beyond the river bridge
The sound of water: hearing it broke my heart
I recall only the grief of separation,
And how hard it was for him to set off on the long road
He stopped his horse, then again plied the whip,
To send me one hundred thousand words.

Can this world
From of old
(Always) have been so sad,
Or did it become so for the sake

Palace halls loomed high, encaged in purple vapor,
In golden canals, sanded with jade, was five-colored water,
The guardian doorkeepers, sylphine maids, lay asleep, one on the other;
Stealthily I plucked from the coiled peachtree, and almost fell to the ground.