On looking carefully, behold
The caseweed flowering near the fence!

The waterside city stands as in a picture scroll.
The sky is lucid above the mountain shrouded in evening gloom,
While the waters on either hand shine like mirrors;
Two painted bridges span them like rainbows dropt from the sky.
The smoke from the cottages curls up around the citron trees,
And the hues of late autumn are on the green paulownias.
Who ever dreamed of my coming hither to the North Tower
To brood over the memory of Prince Hsieh, while the wind blows in my face?

Pity the dewy pearl be thrown
Away upon the grassy moor!

Together we officials climbed vermilion steps,
To be parted by the purple walls ...
Our procession, which entered the palace at dawn,
Leaves fragrant now at dusk with imperial incense.
... Grey heads may grieve for a fallen flower,
Or blue clouds envy a lilting bird;
But this reign is of heaven, nothing goes wrong,
There have been almost no petitions.

It's a long way home, a long way east.
I am old and my sleeve is wet with tears.
We meet on horseback. I have no means of writing.
Tell them three words: “He is safe.”

They say that wildgeese, flying southward,
Here turn back, this very month ...
Shall my own southward journey
Ever be retraced, I wonder?
... The river is pausing at ebb-tide,
And the woods are thick with clinging mist —
But tomorrow morning, over the mountain,
Dawn will be white with the plum-trees of home.

She stands, leaning against the balustrade
Of Chen-hsiang Ting, the Pavilion of Aloes.
Vanquished are the endless longings of Love
Borne into the heart on the wind of spring.
The radiant flower and the flowery queen rejoice together,
For the emperor deigns to watch them ever with a smile.

The little bubbles floating on the wave
Are all soft kisses which the west wind gave;
The luscious glow upon the peach's face
Bears blushing witness to the sun's embrace;
And those two dimples, Sweet, that come and go,
Tell tales of true-love kisses — is it so?

In dangerous times we two came south;
Now you go north in safety, without me.
But remember my head growing white among strangers,
When you look on the blue of the mountains of home.
... The moon goes down behind a ruined fort,
Leaving star-clusters above an old gate ...
There are shivering birds and withering grasses,
Whichever way I turn my face.

The glory of trailing clouds is in her garments,
And the radiance of a flower on her face.
O heavenly apparition, found only far above
On the top of the Mountain of Many Jewels,
Or in the fairy Palace of Crystal when the moon is up!
Yet I see her here in the earth's garden —
The spring wind softly sweeps the balustrade,
And the dew-drops glisten thickly....