Boys and girls crying with hunger, all over the village,
and the tax collector knocking at every door...
The old man, unable to fall asleep at night,
finds brush and paper, starts work on a painting
of Peach Blossom Spring.

A suggestion of chill pervades the little bower,
The haze of dawn sulky as though it were deep autumn.
On the painted screen, thin mist hovering over a running brook —
A scene tranquil and serene.

Fallen petals flying at ease — ethereal like dreams;
Mizzling rain in an endless stream — fine as sorrow.
The jeweled curtain hung up idly on a little hook of silver.

Borgia, thou once wert almost too august
And high for adoration; now thou'rt dust.
All that remains of thee these plaits unfold--
Calm hair, meandering in pellucid gold.

Bone and Skin,
Two millers thin,
Would starve the town, or near it;--
But be it known
To Skin and Bone
That Flesh and Blood can't bear it.

Rain now stopped on the plain to the west,
It is all orioles and blossoms, charming in every way.
Green hills surround the city walls,
White birds burst through the stream's mist.
A little village there beyond its clear flow,
Gardens here at the front of the bright, rain-washed scene.
Thinking way back to those guests at Orchid Islet,
Wistfully I stroll through the sunset of this spring day.

The boat moored, lunch in a lonely village;
on the far bank I see a dappled horse,
in lean pasture, gaunt with hunger;
scruffy birds flocking down to peck his feed.
Pity is powerless — I have no bow;
again and again I try to pelt them with clods
but I haven't the strength to manage a hit,
face sweaty and hot with chagrin.

Blue sky and bluer sea with its white teeth showing,
Gold dunes made sweet by yellow jasmine growing,
And over sand and sea a keen wind blowing.

Gray skies and grayer days and the years swift going,
Youth's golden dunes all white with winter's snowing . . .
And in my heart the bitter wind of memory blowing.

Blue-green bamboo, white sand, village on the river;
evening breeze among the flowers, water lapping the gate.
As I walk home, the moon is a delicate lady;
no words can describe the fragrance, the serenity
in my tea cup.

Grasses enclose the old palaces as waning sunlight shifts.
A lone wind-tossed cloud stops briefly: on what can it depend?
The view here, mountains and rivers, has never changed,
Yet the people within the city walls already are half gone.
The reed flowers that fill the land have grown old with me,
But into whose eaves have the swallows of my former home flown?
Now I depart on the road out of Chiang-nan;
Transformed into a weeping cuckoo, reeking of blood, I shall return.

River inn spring hangover — half a day's delay,
plus troubling the governor to send over wine so I could clear my head.
Masses and masses of willow flowers on the banks of the Chia-ling;
something special — at sky's end, today's case of the dumps!