Short Poems

You brought sweetfish
but didn't drop in —
the gate at midnight

The river city is as in a picture,
This mountain evening I gaze through clear skies
The two streams are inserted mirrors;
The paired bridges are fallen rainbows
Chimney smoke is chilling the oranges,
Autumn light ages the phoenix trees
Who would suppose that on the North Tower
Leaning into the wind I'd be filled with Duke Xie?

Grape Wine Golden Bowls.
And a girl from Wu, just fifteen, bundled on a blooded horse
Indigo blue she paints her brows, red brocade are her shoes,
Speaking her words a little askew
she temptingly sings her song.
At the feast on tortoise-shell mats
she gets drunk in your arms
In bed behind the lotus curtains what will she do to you?

Before my bed the moonlight glitters
Like frost upon the ground
I look up to the mountain moon,
Look down and think of home.

FROM THE GREEK .

I, Lais, once of Greece the pride,
For whom so many suitors sigh'd,
Now aged grown, at Venus' shrine
The Mirror of my youth resign:
Since what I am , I will not see,
And what I was , I cannot be.

At the height of our enjoyment comes anguish. This is indeed the way of this world of sorrow, but for this seedling thousand-year-old pine that had known not even half life's joys — for this sprig of but two leaflets, at the peak of her young laughter, to be possessed, unexpectedly as water in a sleeper's ear, by the savage god of pox! At the height of the eruption, she was like a budding first blossom that had no sooner bloomed than it was beaten down by muddy rains; just watching by her side was agony.

Last summer, around bamboo-planting time, my daughter was born into this world of sorrow. In order that, though ignorant, she might come to comprehend the way of things, we named her Sato. Since celebrating her birthday this year, she has delighted in such little games as " Clappety, clappety, ah-wa-wa! Pat-a-pate, pat-a-pate, this-a-way, that-a-way! " Yet once when she saw another child her age with a windmill toy, she wanted it so badly that she put up a huge fuss.

Jing gorge: white rocks jut
Cold sky: a few red leaves
No rain upon this mountain path,
Just azure emptiness, to wet the cloak.

Delicious looking!
the snow
falling softly, softly —

Who knows the Hidden Fragrance Temple,
How many li away, on cloudy peak?
Ancient trees, no trace of path
Deep mountain, whence the bell?
Sound of the spring, the standing stones, sobbing
Color of the sun, the green pines, freezing
Toward dusk, on the curve of the lake,
Quiet Zen, to tame the poison dragon