English

A Queen Mother of the West peach tree is planted in my yard;
After three thousand warming springs,
it finally had a flower.
This strain and delay producing a fruit
was laughed at all around,
But when I climbed up to pick it, aah, aah, I sighed aloud.

Beware fair Mayde of muskie courtiers oathes,
Take heed what gifts and favours you receive,
Let not the fading glosse of silken clothes
Dazell your vertue, or your fame bereave.
For loose but once the hold you have of grace,
Who'll e'er respect your fortune or your face.

Each greedy hand will strive to catch the flowre
When none regards the stalke it growes upon,
Each creature seekes the fruite still to devoure
But leave the tree to fall or stand alone.
Yet this advise, faire creature, take of me,

Between us
twenty years of age
between your lips and my lips
when they meet and stay
the years collapse
the glass of a whole life shatters.

Between two golden tufts of summer grass,
I see the world through hot air as through glass,
And by my face sweet lights and colors pass.

Before me dark against the fading sky,
I watch three mowers mowing, as I lie:
With brawny arms they sweep in harmony.

Brown English faces by the sun burnt red,
Rich glowing color on bare throat and head,
My heart would leap to watch them, were I dead!

And in my strong young living as I lie,
I seem to move with them in harmony,
A fourth is mowing, and the fourth am I.

Between thirty and forty, one is distracted by the Five Lusts;
Between seventy and eighty, one is a prey to a hundred diseases.
But from fifty to sixty one is free from all ills;
Calm and still — the heart enjoys rest.
I have put behind me Love and Greed; I have done with Profit and Fame;
I am still short of illness and decay and far from decrepit age.
Strength of limb I still possess to seek the rivers and hills;
Still my heart has spirit enough to listen to flutes and strings.
At leisure I open new wine and taste several cups;

Between the traveller and the setting sun,
Upon some drifting sand heap of the shore,
A hound stands o'er the carcass of a man.

Waters, drough the meäds a-purlen,
Glissen'd in the evenen's light,
An' smoke, above the town a-curlen,
Melted slowly out o' zight;
An' there, in glooms
Ov unzunn'd rooms,
To zome, wi' idle sorrows fretten,
Zuns did set avore their zetten.

We were out in geämes and reäces,
Loud a-laughen, wild in me'th,
Wi' windblown heäir, an' zunbrowned feäces,

Between the sunken sun and the new moon,
I stood in fields through which a rivulet ran
With scarce perceptible motion, not a span
Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune
Of sunset breezes: “O delicious boon,”
I cried, “of quiet! wise is Nature's plan,
Who, in her realm, as in the soul of man,
Alternates storm with calm, and the loud noon
With dewy evening's soft and sacred lull:
Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,
And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,
Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power;

Between the mountains and the sea,
Walled by the rock, fringed by the foam,
A valley stretches fair and free
Beneath the blue of heaven's dome.

At rest in that fair valley lies
Saint Barbara, the beauteous maid;
Above her head the cloudless skies
Smile down upon her charms displayed.

The sunlit mountains o'er her shed
The splendor of their purple tinge;
While round her like a mantle spread
The blue seas with their silver fringe.

Enfolded in that soothing calm,

Between the falling leaf and rose-bud's breath;
The bird's forsaken nest and her new song
(And this is all the time there is for Death);
The worm and butterfly — it is not long!

Between the erect and solemn trees
I will go down upon my knees;
— — I shall not find this day
— — So meet a place to pray.

Haply the beauty of this place
May work in me an answering grace,
— — The stillness of the air
— — Be echoed in my prayer.

The worshiping trees arise and run,
With never a swerve, toward the sun;
— — So may my soul's desire
— — Turn to its central fire.

With single aim they seek the light,
And scarce a twig in all their height
— — Breaks out until the head