Short Poems

People who buy flowers in Ch'ang-an
pay millions for just a few stems.
Beside the road there is a hungry man:
they don't give him a single cent.

Overlooking the water, a desolate city
where wind-swept sand gets in your eyes.
Half the people here are refugees,
behind the closed gates of their thatched huts.

One day I met you,
today I part from you.
We met in the clouds of ten thousand mountains;
we part in a thousand mountains of snow.

Others may praise what they like;
But I, from the banks of the running Missouri, praise nothing in art or aught else,
Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river, also the western prairie-scent,
And exudes it all again.

A parting meal, low lamp — stay and enjoy it a bit longer;
new mud on the road home — better wait till it dries.
On peaks across the river, clouds only now dispersing;
strings and songs in the house next door just beginning to fade in the night.
Intercalary month this spring — my guest lingers on,
though last night's rain heartlessly scattered the cherry flowers.
From here you go to Mino — not a long way away,
though, growing old, I know how hard it is to meet now and then.

Ox driver in a sudden shower,
sentenced to his

Over the lake, the wind and snow of a New Year's sky;
in my short straw cape and battered hat I've come through another year.
A country monk, ignorant of what goes on in the world,
beside the stove, roasting potatoes, I stretch my legs and doze.

Over the winter glaciers
I see the summer glow,
And through the wild-piled snowdrift
The warm rosebuds below.

Part of the work remains; one part is past:
And here my ship rides, having anchor cast.

One ask'd me where the Roses grew?
I bade him not goe seek;
But forthwith bade my Julia shew
A bud in either cheek.