Classic Poem

Pity me! my body is female,
My lowly state is hard to describe.
A boy faces door and gate,
Comes down on earth with a natural birthright,
His manly heart burns for the four seas,
Ten thousand leagues he yearns for windy dust.

A girl is born, there is no celebration,
She is not her family's prized jewel.
Grown up she is hidden in private rooms,
Veils her head, too shy to look on others.

Shedding tears she marries in another village,
Sudden like a cloudburst of rain.
With bowed head she calms her features,
White teeth clenched beneath red lips.
She kneels down countless times

To maids and concubines like grim guests.
Happy love is like Cloudy Han,
Like mallow or bean that leans toward spring sun.
Loving hearts in conflict are worse than water on fire,
One hundred wrongs are heaped upon the girl.

Her jade face with the years alters,
Her husband takes many new loves.
Once they were form and shadow,
Now they are Hun and Chinese.
Hun and Chinese sometimes see each other.
Love once severed is remote as Antares and Orion.