Zi Ye’s Song
The Moon shines upon Chang’an city:
From all households the sound of pounding clothes.
The autumn wind cannot blow away all longing and
anguish
For our men beyond the
When will the hordes of Huns be conquered.
So our husbands can return from their long expedition?
To Wang Lun
I’m on board: we‘re about to sail,
When there’s stamping and singing on shore:
Peach blossom Pool is a thousand feet deep,
Yet not so deep, Wang Lun, as your love for me.
Seeing Meng
Haoran Off to
At
My old friend says farewell:
In the mist and flowers of spring
He goes down to
Lonely sail, distant shadow.
Vanish in blue emptiness:
All I see is the great river
Flowing into the far horizon.
To a Friend
departing
Green hills skirt the northern suburbs:
A sparkling stream circuits the eastern city.
After our leave-taking in this place.
Like thistledown, you’ll drift ten thousand li.
A wanderer is aimless like a floating cloud:
An old friend lingers like the setting sun.
We wave as your start on your way:
Our horses separated sadly neigh.
A Farewell to
Li Yun* in the Xie Tiao Pavilion**
Yesterday has passed and gone beyond recall:
Today worries and sorrows assail the mind.
Let us drink our fill in this high pavilion.
Here is one who writes with great scholarship:
His spirited style and poems compare with Xie Tiao.
Our lofty ambitions soar high:
Seeking to reach the moon in the sky.
Cut water with a sword, the water flows on:
Quench sorrow with wine, the sorrow increases.
In our lifetime, our wishes are unfulfilled:
Tomorrow, hair unbound, we’ll sail away in a boat.
* Li Yun was an editor in the imperial library and a
friend of the poet.
** The Xie Tao pavilion was built by the poet Xie Tiao.
A Reply to
someone in the Mountains
You ask why I choose to live among the green hills:
I smile without answering, my heart at peace.
Peach blossoms float away with the streams:
There are heavens and earths beyond the world of men.
Reflections
on the Moon while drinking
When did the moon first appear in the sky?
I drop drinking to pose this question.
The moon is beyond the reach of man.
Yet it follows wherever you go.
Like a bright mirror high above crimson palaces:
The green mist disperses revealing its splendor.
At night we see it rising above the oceans:
At dawn we know not where it goes among the clouds.
Year after year the white hare pounds medicine:*
Who is there to keep the lonely Chang company?
People today cannot see the moon of ages past:
Yet the moon today has shone on our ancestors.
People pass away like a flowing stream:
Yet all have seen the moon like this.
My only wish singing and drinking wine
Is to see the moonlight in my golden goblet.
*This refers to the Chinese legend that a white hare
prepares a medicine with a mortar and pestle on the moon. The goddess of the
Moon, Chang Ye, has fled there after stealing some elixir of life from her
husband.
Ascending
Ascending Taibai peak from the west,
I reach the summit in the sunset.
The morning star speaks to me,
Opening the gate of Heaven.
I wish to go with the wind,
Emerge from the floating clouds,
Raise my hand to touch the moon
And travel over all the mountains.
Once I have left Wugong,
When shall I return again.
Watching the
Waterfall at Lushan
In the Censer peak breathes a purple vapour,
Far off hangs the cataract, a stream upended;
Down it cascades a sheer three thousand feet—
As if the silver river* were falling from Heavens!
*The Chinese term for the milky-way
At Mother Xun
at Five-Pine Hill
At the foot of Five-pine Hill
I stay alone, with small comfort.
Farm folk toil hard in the autumn.
My neighbour husks her grain in the chill night.
Kneeling, she offers me a dish of diao-hu.
Moonlight makes the white plate sparkle.
With a pang I remember the washerwoman of old.
I thank her again and again.
But I cannot take her food.
Thanks to Lata Iyer for submitting these compositions