Short Poems

Orioles sang in a thousand hamlets,
red glowing on green
Waterside villages, mountain ramparts,
wineshop pennants blowing
Of four hundred and eighty temples,
those of the Southern Dynasties,
how many towers are there now
in misty rain?

With snowy coats, snowy crests, and sapphire bills,
They flock to fish, reflected in the brook
In startled flight, they shine on emerald hills
— petals from a pear tree in an evening breeze.

Keep well thy heart of song,
Child of the mountain path;
Soon will the way seem long —
Keep well thy heart of song!
With it, nor rough nor wrong
Spell for thy beauty hath:
Keep well thy heart of song,
Child of the mountain path.

FROM THE GERMAN OF LESSING

You hesitate if you shall take a wife:
Do as your father did — live single all your life.

The light of the lake and the autumn moon
are a pair perfectly matched,
No winds ruffle the face of the waters,
a mirror unpolished.
If you gaze far off into Lake Dongting
and the azure color of mountain —
In a platter of shining silver
a single green conch

Black moon geese fly high,
Tartars flee the dark;
Light horses pursue,
Sword and bow snow-marked.

Grass rustle through dim woods,
Warrior shoots into night,
Dawn finds arrow-plume
Lost in rocky heights.

Furling my sail near the town of Huai,
I find for harbour a little cove
Where a sudden breeze whips up the waves.
... The sun is growing dim now and sinks in the dusk.
People are coming home. The bright mountain-peak darkens.
Wildgeese fly down to an island of white weeds.
... At midnight I think of a northern city-gate,
And I hear a bell tolling between me and sleep.

By Su Creek Pavilion
the grasses spread everywhere —
Who is it leans to the east wind
on the twelve railings there?
The swallows do not return,
the last events of spring:
A whole sandbar of misty rain
and the pear blossoms cold.

Miscarried, mishandled — a lifetime's affairs,
Slipping and stumbling and now, white hair.
My plans and stratagems all fell through:
I feel my shame even before wife and children
Though my wise prince has cast me from him,
Loyalty still ceases not in my heart,
But grief comes, and I've nowhere to go —
I can only climb this, the western tower.