Classic Poem

1

Master Cheng is thirty — and doesn't have a job!
He's studied books, practiced swordsmanship — and gotten
nowhere!
He would drag his young companions into bars to drink,
and they'd spend their days banging on drums,
or blowing into mouth-organs.
This year, his father died, leaving him an inheritance
of old books,
but the tattered volumes with torn pages
can't be appraised that fast.
Meanwhile, the stove is cold, the firewood has nearly run out,
and the debt collector is beating on the front gate!
Oh, alas! this first song is one of hardship;
I'm rushing through all those books —
but how can I read them on time?

2

When I was three years old, my mother passed away,
but it's hard to sever the tender love
of a child in baby clothes:
I climbed into her bed, and tried to nurse,
clutching her prone body —
not realizing she was already dead, I kept calling out to her!
Before, when I would cry at night — cry on and on —
my mother, ill as she was, would be wakened by my voice,
and, ill as she was, she'd caress me and whisper to me
until I'd fallen asleep.
Then the lamp went out, and my mother would cough
by the chilly window ...
Alas, this second song is sung at midnight
when perching crows are restless, and branches
snap from the locust trees in the courtyard.