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• Classic-Fiction

The flowers of the field have powder on their cheeks;

The mountain grasses are bent level at the waist.

By the bamboo stream the last fragments of cloud,

Blown by the wind, scatter slowly away.

8

Do not ask me to sing.

That belongs to better times; the lute

And my voice cannot agree,

And neither of them agree

With my untuned fortunes.

Music is the child of mirth, not grief;

This grief’s too great for songs and smiling eyes.

The raven’s harsh call, the wolf’s cry,

The midnight screech owl,

Blizzard wind or cracking ice:

That is the only music for this,

Or better: silence;

Not music but silence,

Not the sounding string, but solitude.

9

Do you know where the lemon blossoms blow,

Where golden oranges in foliage glow,

Where the breeze falls from an azure sky,

And the myrtle and laurel stand high?

Do you know the mansion with the white wall,

The blackened chimney and the fire-lit hall?

That is the place I would have you know,

The place where, with you, I would now go.

10

At the end of spring

The flower of the pear tree gathers and turns to fruit;

The swallows’ eggs have hatched.

When the seasons’ changes thus confront the mind

What comfort is there in philosophy?

It can teach me to watch the days and months fly

Without grieving that youth slips away;

If the fleeting world is a dream

What does it matter whether one is young or old.

But ever since the day my friend left my side

And has lived in exile in a far city,

There is one wish I cannot quite abandon:

That from time to time we may meet again.

11

In waters still as a burnished mirror’s face,

In the depths of the river, trout and grayling swim.

Idly I come with my bamboo rod

And hang my hook by the stream’s bank.

A soft breeze blows on my fishing gear,

Gently swaying my three yards of line.

Though my body sits waiting for fish to rise,

My heart has wandered to the land of nothingness.

Long ago a white-headed man

Also fished at this same river-side;

A hooker of men, not of fish,

When seventy years old he caught a king.

But when I cast my hook in the stream

I have no thought of fish or men.

Lacking the skill to capture either prey,

I only bask in the autumn water’s light;

When I tire of this, my fishing also stops,

And I turn homeward for a cup of wine.

12

My house is poor; those that I love have left me;

My body is sick; I cannot join the feast.

There is not a single face before my eyes

As I lie alone in my cottage room.

My broken lamp burns with a feeble flame;

My tattered curtains are crooked and do not meet.

On the doorstep and window sill

I hear the new snow fall.

As I grow older, gradually I sleep less;

I wake at midnight and sit up in bed.

If I had not learned the art of sitting and forgetting,

How could I bear this loneliness?

Stiff and stark my body cleaves to earth;

Unimpeded my mind yields to change.

So has it been through the long years,

Through twenty thousand nights!

13

I hug my pillow and do not speak a word;

In my empty room no sound stirs.

Who knows that, all day a-bed,

I am not ill, nor even asleep?

Turned to jade are the rosy cheeks

That long ago I had as a boy;

To my sick temples the winter frost now clings.

Do not wonder that my body sinks to decay;

Though my limbs are old, my heart is older yet.

14

Washed by the rain, dust and grime are laid;

Skirting the river, the road’s course is flat.

The moon has risen on the last remnants of night;

The travellers’ speed profits by the early cold.

In the silence I whisper a song;

Darkness breeds sombre thoughts.

On the lotus-bank hovers a dewy breeze;

Through the rice-furrows trickles a singing stream.

At the noise of our bells a dog stirs from sleep;

At the sight of our torches a roosting bird wakes.

Dawn glimmers through the misty shapes of trees –

For ten miles, till day at last breaks.

15

When the sun rose I was still in bed;

An early oriole sang in the eaves.

I thought of the royal park’s trees at dawn,

From which the spring birds greeted the king,

When I