Still — all things appear.
Moving — there is nothing.
What is nothingness?
Chrysanthemums bursting in the frost.

My love is coming! I take dinner early,
run out the middle gate, to the outside gate, and sit on the step. I shield my eyes with my hand. Is he coming or not? I look at the mountain opposite. Something black and white is standing there: it must be my love.
Stockings clutched to my breast, shoes in my hand, I begin to run,
racing, rolling, faster, still faster, oblivious of dry ground or wet — for I have words of love to say. One quick look tells me all: last year's stripped flax stalks have deceived me.
Luckily

People, kind people, please buy my powder and rouge.
Vendor, good vendor, I'll buy, if your wares are fine.
How fine my wares are I cannot say, but once rubbed on, you'll have an allure you hadn't before.
If your claims,
vendor, are true, five, six large measures is what I'll buy, even if I have to sell my old underwear.

One by one I've gathered up my feelings of love;
I've measured them, bagged them.
They're loaded now on the straight back of a fine strong horse.
Hey, lad,
give her the whip; send them off to my love.

Girl, don't be so haughty;
don't boast of your beauty.
Have you never seen the wild chrysanthemums that bloom on the hill behind your house?
One touch of
Ninth- or tenth-month frost and they become kindling for the fire.

What is love, what is it?
Is it round, is it square?
Is it long, is it short?
More than an inch, more than a yard?
It seems of no great length,
but somehow I don't know where it ends.

In the valley where the stream leaps,
having built a grass hut by the rock,
I till the field under the moon,
lie down among the vast clouds.
Heaven and earth advise me
to age together with them.

A horse neighs, wants to gallop:
my love clings to me, begs me to stay.
The sun has crossed the hill.
I have a thousand miles to go.
My love, do not stop me:
stop the sun from setting!

Don't laugh if my roof beams
are long or short, the pillars
Tilted or crooked, or my grass hut small.
Moonlight that pours on the vines,
The encircling hills,
are mine — and mine alone.

A rain came overnight;
pomegranates are in full bloom.
Having rolled up a crystal screen
by the lotus pond,
Can I unravel this deep sorrow —
caused by someone I love?