English

Don't knock at my door, little child,
I cannot let you in,
You know not what a world this is
Of cruelty and sin.
Wait in the still eternity
Until I come to you,
The world is cruel, cruel, child,
I cannot let you in!

Don't knock at my heart, little one,
I cannot bear the pain
Of turning deaf-ear to your call
Time and time again!
You do not know the monster men
Inhabiting the earth,
Be still, be still, my precious child,
I must not give you birth!

There was a Young Lady of Firle,
Whose hair was addicted to curl;
It curled up a tree, and all over the sea,
That expansive Young Lady of Firle.

Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,
sob on the long cool winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.

Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy
tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha-
husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.

Early, my God, without delay,
I haste to seek Thy face;
My thirsty spirit faints away
Without Thy cheering grace.
So pilgrims on the scorching sand
Beneath a burning sky
Long for a cooling stream at hand,
And they must drink or die.

Epigrams must be curt, nor seem
Tail-pieces to a poet's dream.
If they should anywhere be found
Serious, or musical in sound
Turn into prose the two worst pages
And you will rank among the sages.

Entertained by song and dance here in this wine pavilion,
truly a palace of paradise where the soul melts completely away!
Having mastered all the " postures of joy " the Buddhists talk about,
in one spring evening, twenty-five cases
of perfect enlightenment!

East the ocean, west the Himalaya,
dwelling for great monarchs!
Southern barges, northern horses
throng the royal capital.
The great man of this period
descended from heaven above;
over ten thousand miles — standard axles and script:
no precedent in the past.
Ch'in and Han were powerful,
but tyrannical and cruel;
Chin and T'ang were beautiful,
but lacked a noble scheme.
Weaving heaven and earth together,
far-reaching in its rules;
generations of godlike grandsons
will venerate your Sagely Plan.

East of the salt village, low and narrow —
the huts of the seaside folk.
The sixth month come, they boil down the salt,
as if boiling in water themselves!
They step outside and stand for a while
in the raging sun:
for them, this moment out of doors
counts as cooling off.

1
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Now lending splendor, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters,--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
2

Eagle! why soarest thou above that tomb?
To what sublime and star-ypaven home
Floatest thou?
I am the image of swift Plato's spirit,
Ascending heaven--Athens doth inherit
His corpse below.