Short Poems

The plum-blossom
Which I thought I would show
To my Brother
Does not seem to be one (at all);
It was (only) that snow had fallen!

(You are like) the Lightning
Flashing near
To the clouds of the sky;
When I see you, I am frightened;
When I do not see you, I am sad.

With a spreading and spreading
(Like that) of the clouds that sit at morning
On the moor of Kasuga, —
I increase in my love
In the lapse of months and days.

A traveler came from far away,
He brought me a lacquer singing lute
On its wood a loving you design,
Its strings were set in the key of farewell.
All my life I will keep this chord,
The year grown cold will not change my heart.
I long to compose a Sunny spring tune.
With do and re for ever in pursuit.

Upon the mountain edge
Noisy as a flock of teal
Though we are walking,
I am lonely, ah!
Because you are not here.

To sit silent
And look wise
Is not to be compared with
Drinking sake
And making a riotous shouting.

The sun has set in the water's clear void,
And little blue islands are one with the sky.
On the bank a horse neighs. A boat goes by.
People gather at a willow-clump and wait for the ferry.
Down by the sand-bushes sea-gulls are circling,
Over the wide river-lands flies an egret.
... Can you guess why I sail, like an ancient wise lover,
Through the misty Five Lakes, forgetting words?

The old fort brims with yellow leaves....
You insist upon forsaking this place where you have lived.
A high wind blows at Han-yang Ferry
And sunrise lights the summit of Ying-mên ...
Who will be left for me along the upper Yang-tsze
After your solitary skiff has entered the end of the sky?
I ask you over and over when we shall meet again,
While we soften with winecups this ache of farewell.

After the dry-eyed years of calm content,
There came a dream of homing as I slept,
Which left me, when its beauty was all spent,
Weary and sick at heart; — but then, I wept!

For the way that plantains move in the rain
I grew some facing the window.
I'm at one with the ditch, for the sound of the dripping
Carries me back in a dream to my homeland.
A vain dream: I'll never go home again.
I wake from sleep, turn over again.