English

God be with thee, my belov├¿d, — God be with thee!
Else alone thou goest forth,
Thy face unto the north,
Moor and pleasance all around thee and beneath thee
Looking equal in one snow;
While I, who try to reach thee,
Vainly follow, vainly follow

GO thou and seek the House of Prayer!
I to the woodlands wend, and there
In lovely Nature see the God of Love.
The swelling organ's peal
Wakes not my soul to zeal,
Like the sweet music of the vernal grove.
The gorgeous altar and the mystic vest
Excite not such devotion in my breast,
As where the noon-tide beam,
Flash'd from some broken stream,
Vibrates on the dazzled sight;
Or where the cloud-suspended rain
Sweeps in shadows o'er the plain;
Or when, reclining on the cliff's huge height,

God made the wicked Grocer
For a mystery and a sign,
That men might shun the awful shops
And go to inns to dine;
Where the bacon's on the rafter
And the wine is in the wood,
And God that made good laughter
Has seen that they are good.

The evil-hearted Grocer
Would call his mother " Ma'am,"
And bow at her and bob at her,
Her aged soul to damn,
And rub his horrid hands and ask
What article was next,
Though mortis in articulo
Should be her proper text.

His props are not his children,

The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours — on the wall —
Are drawing a long breath to shout " Hurray!"
The strangest whim has seized me . . . After all
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

To-morrow is the time I get my pay —
My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall —
I see a little cloud all pink and grey —
Perhaps the Rector's mother will not call —

George the First was always reckoned
Vile, but viler George the Second;
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third?
When from earth the Fourth descended
(God be praised!) the Georges ended.

Grasping my flying cane, several feet of wood,
in an instant I am among the white clouds.
But my drunken eyes are hazy—I don't know where I am,
I think I'm going down the mountain when I'm really going up!

The girl from Ch'ang-kan is just fourteen years old:
on a spring ramble, she comes upon a temple
from the Southern Dynasties.
With her elegant, soft hairdo she bows slowly to Buddha,
lowers her head — and drops a gold hairpin to the ground!
A young man who visits the temple that day
picks up the hairpin with its inlay of kingfisher.
He takes it home with him, not knowing whose it is,
and stands unhappily, smelling its fragrant odor
again and again.

A full moon on the night of the seventeenth:
this is the first time it has happened in years.
There is a drought now, no clouds in the sky:
I can see each hair on the rabbit!

Frost-sad, clouds of white hair,
locked behind iron doors:
tea-fragrance or dogwood wine —
none of them for me!
In southern hat, old and weak,
I yearn to wear black cap;
the jailor's footsteps, stumbling sound,
I take for the white-robed messenger.
My wife, like the chrysanthemum,
how gaunt has she become?
Myself, like a wild goose up north,
when will I fly home?
Far away, I know throughout the world
are mountain-climbing gatherings;
many men point to the Yen Mountains,
pour libations in the setting sun.

From the top of Dragon Gate
I gaze down at West Lake:
Wu Tzu-hsü's hill, townsman's retreat,
props me from behind.
A sound of flute wafts on fragrant breeze
from amongst the lotus:
my soul melts, bit by bit,
at this scene within a painting.