Short Poems

Year after year...how many millennia of worldly affairs,
while in this cave-paradise, phoenixes danced and sang?
Each midnight, purple mists fly into rain,
dripping a stream of precious drops on rocks of gold essence.

The Yangtze River, autumn colors
fathomless, no limit;
as wild geese go flying past,
water splashes sky.
In the river inlets, all seventy-two,
this night of bright moonlight,
reed blossoms and maple leaves
cover the fishing boats.

With its cloud of skirmishers in advance,
With now the sound of a single shot snapping like a whip, and now an irregular volley,
The swarming ranks press on and on, the dense brigades press on;
Glittering dimly, toiling under the sun--the dust-cover'd men,
In columns rise and fall to the undulations of the ground,
With artillery interspers'd--the wheels rumble, the horses sweat,
As the army corps advances.

" Imagining her death and cremation " :
Sad — the end that waits me —
to think at last
I'll be a mere haze
pale green over the fields

Workmen eating lunch,
with a side order

I've grown so wretched,
I'd break this sad body
off from its roots,
drift away like a floating weed
if the current were to beckon

I pity those rice stalks
blasted by the autumn wind,
fruitless as this love of mine
you've grown tired of

Wood ducks, teals, even mallards come and stay
in Hara Pond. Don't reap the plants in it, roots and all,
so they can grow again,
so they can grow again!

With blameless carriage I lived here
To th' (almost) seven and fortieth year.
Stout sons I had, and those twice three;
One only daughter lent to me,
The which was made a happy bride,
But thrice three moons before she died;
My modest wedlock, that was known
Contented with the bed of one.

"Yes, ' is the time,' I cried, "impose the chain
Destined and due to wretches self-enslaved!'
But when I saw such charity remain,
I half could wish this people might be saved.
Faith lost, and hope, their charity begins;
And 'tis a wise design on pitying Heaven,
If this can, cover multitudes of sins,
To take the only way to be forgiven