love poems for her

Loving the breeze on clifftops, I climb to a shelter of pines,
entranced by moonlight, beside the pond sit on a stone ledge,
and with these clouds and fountains I form bonds of karma —
in another life, certain to be a monk of this mountain!

In the ninth month when west winds blow,
when moonlight is cold and dew blossoms congeal,
I think of you all the long autumn night —
in one night my spirit leaps up nine times.
In the second month when the east wind comes,
when grasses sprout and the hearts of flowers unfold,
I think of you through the slow spring days —
one day and my heart takes nine turnings.
I live north of Lo River bridge,
you live south of Lo River bridge.
Since I was fifteen I've known you,
and this year I'll be twenty-three.

What I fancy, I approve,
No Dislike there is in love:
Be my Mistresse short or tall,
And distorted there-withall:
Be she likewise one of those,
That an Acre hath of Nose:
Be her forehead, and her eyes
Full of incongruities:
Be her cheeks so shallow too,
As to shew her Tongue wag through:
Be her lips ill hung, or set,
And her grinders black as jet;
Ha's she thinne haire, hath she none,
She's to me a Paragon .

I

AN empty glove — long withering in the grasp
Of Time's cold palm. I lift it to my lips, —
And lo, once more I thrill beneath its clasp,
In fancy, as with odorous finger-tips
It reaches from the years that used to be
And proffers back love, life and all, to me.

II

Ah! beautiful she was beyond belief:
Her face was fair and lustrous as the moon's;

" AS love of native land, " the old man said,
" Er stars and stripes a-wavin' overhead,
Er nearest kith-and-kin, er daily bread,
A Hoosier's love is fer the old homestead. "

When I loved you, I can't but allow
I had many an exquisite minute;
But the scorn that I feel for you now
Hath even more luxury in it!

Thus, whether we're on or we're off,
Some witchery seems to await you;
To love you is pleasant enough,
And, oh! 'tis delicious to hate you!

BY LI T'AI-PO

From whose house do the invisible notes of a jade flute come flying?
The Spring wind scatters them. They fill the City of Lo Yang.
To-night, as the phrases form, I hear " The Snapped Willow. "
To whom do they not bring back the love of his old, early garden?

BY LI T'AI-PO

The silver-crested love-pheasants strutted upon the Pheasant Terrace.
Now the pheasants are gone, the terrace is empty, and the river flows on its old, original way.
Gone are the blossoms of the Palace of Wu and overgrown the road to it.
Passed the generations of the Chin, with their robes and head-dresses; they lie beneath the ancient mounds.

The three hills are half fallen down from Green Heaven.
The White Heron Island cuts the river in two.

BY LI T'AI-PO

From little, little girls, they have lived in the Golden House.
They are lovely, lovely, in the Purple Hall.
They dress their hair with hill flowers,
And rock-bamboos are embroidered on their dresses of open-work silk gauze.
When they go out from the retired Women's Apartments,
They often follow the Palace chairs.
Their only sorrow, that the songs and wu dances are over,
Changed into the five-coloured clouds and flown away.

The instrument of your reason being tuned
To the pitch of madness and desire to wound,
You would not drink my health save from her glass
Who drinks my death: can such things come to pass?
But I considered, striving to be just
(Who strive not to be loving, for I must),
That we, your vassals bound by every oath,
Are thus your vessels, and you drink from both:
That she and I, being each of us a woman,
Taste the elixir of your lips in common;
Though I alone am privy to the fact;
I have your half, and lesser than exact: