Window on Chinese Poetry |
Collection Seven |
"Sitting up with my wife one New Year's Eve" by Hsu Chun Chien So many delights the excitement has no end, so much joy the cup is never still; pluck a daddy longlegs out of the wine, find a wild plum inside the dumpling! The blind swings open and wind lifts the curtain; the candle burns low, its wick turned to ash. No wonder the pins weigh heavy in your hair - we've waited up so long for dawn light to come! |
"A Lute Song" by Li Ch'i Our host, providing abundant wine to make the night mellow, asks his guest from Yang-chou to play for us on the lute. Toward the moon that whitens the city-wall, black crows are flying, frost is on ten thousand trees, and the wind blows through our clothes; but a copper stove has added its light to that of flowery candles, and the lute plays The Green Water, and then The Queen of Ch'u. Once it has begun to play, there is no other sound: a spell is on the banquet, while the stars grow thin; but three hundred miles from here, in Huai, official duties await him, and so it's farewell, and the road again, under. |
"Angler" by Li Yu Foamy tides, like snow-drifts, lingering; a battalion of plum trees silently blooming; a bottle of wine and a fishing line; who in this world is my equal? The oar scuds apart the spring water on which the leaf-like boat is floating. A tiny hook dangles at the end of a silk cord. The islet is covered with blossoms and my jug is full of wine. Upon these thousand acres of waves there is freedom. |
"Palace Song" by Wang Chien (768-863) I search the treetops, low-hung branches, for a trace of pink: one petal drifting west, one petal east. Peach blossoms thought only of fruit to come; it would be wrong to rail at the dawn-watch wind. |
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