In spring sleep, dawn arrives unnoticed; everywhere, I hear birds calling. Through the night came the sound of wind and rain— how many blossoms must have fallen?
Across a thousand mountains, no bird is in flight; on ten thousand paths, no human trace remains. In a lone boat, an old man in straw cape and hat fishes alone in the snow on the cold river.
You ask when I will return; no date is set. Night rain in the Ba Mountains swells the autumn pools. When shall we trim a candle together by the western window and speak again of this night of rain in the Ba Mountains?
At dawn I leave Baidi amid rose-tinted clouds; a thousand li to Jiangling, returned in a single day. Gibbons call without cease from both banks, while my light boat has already passed ten thousand mountains.
On the empty mountain no one is seen, yet the sound of human voices carries. Returning light enters the deep wood and shines once more on the green moss.
Alone I sit deep in the shaded bamboo, playing the zither and then whistling long. Deep in the wood no one knows of it— the bright moon comes and shines on me.
The northern ridge of Zhongnan stands out fine; its banked snow floats at the edge of the clouds. Above the treetops the clearing sky brightens, and in the city the evening cold increases.
I move the boat and moor by a misted sandbar; the sun sets, and a traveler's sorrow is new again. The plain is wide, the sky hangs below the trees; the river is clear, and the moon comes close to a person.
Toward evening my mood is out of sorts; I drive the carriage up to the ancient plain. The setting sun is boundlessly fine— it is only that dusk is near.
Beneath the pines I question the boy; he says his master has gone to gather herbs. He is only somewhere in this mountain, but the clouds are deep—who knows where?
I left home young and come back old; my home accent unchanged, the hair at my temples thinned. The children see me and do not know me; laughing, they ask where the guest has come from.
Alone in another region, a stranger there, at every festival I think of my kin twice as much. From far off I know my brothers are on the heights, and where all wear dogwood, one man is missing.
Cold rain merged with the river as we entered Wu by night; at first light I see my friend off, and the Chu hills stand alone. If kin and friends in Luoyang should ask about me, say a single piece of ice-clear heart is in a jade vessel.
Fine grape wine in a cup that shines at night; just as we would drink, the pipa on horseback urges us. If I lie drunk on the battlefield, do not laugh at me— how many, since ancient times, have come back from war?
What I love most is the quiet grass growing by the brook, with an oriole calling above it, deep in the trees. The spring tide, bringing rain, runs fast toward evening; at the wild crossing no one is there, and the boat lies athwart of itself.
Before Huile Peak the sand is like snow; beyond the Shouxiang wall the moon is like frost. No one knows where a reed pipe is being blown— all night the campaigning men gaze toward home.
By Vermilion Bird Bridge, wild grasses are in flower; at the mouth of Blackrobe Lane the evening sun slants. The swallows that once nested before the halls of Wang and Xie now fly into the houses of ordinary people.
A broken halberd sunk in sand, its iron not yet eaten away; I take it up myself, grind and wash it, and identify an earlier dynasty. Had the east wind not favored young Zhou, deep spring in the Bronze Sparrow Tower would have shut away the two Qiao.
Mist wraps the cold water, moonlight wraps the sand; at night I moor on the Qinhuai, close by the wine houses. The singing women do not know the grief of a fallen state; across the water they are still singing 'Flowers of the Rear Courtyard.'
Silver candle, autumn light, a painted screen turned cold; a small gauze fan swats at drifting fireflies. On the steps the night air is cool as water; sitting, watching the Herdboy and Weaver Maid stars.
On the mica screen the candle's shadow deepens; the River of Heaven sinks lower, the dawn star goes down. Chang'e must regret having stolen the elixir— green sea, blue sky, and night after night that heart.
The bright moon of Qin, the frontier pass of Han; from the march of ten thousand li the men have not returned. If only the Flying General of Longcheng were here, he would not let the Hu horses cross the Yin Mountains.
I urge you not to prize the robe of gold thread; I urge you to prize instead the years of youth. When a flower opens and can be picked, pick it at once; do not wait until, with no flowers left, you break a bare branch.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d: But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st, Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe, And moan th’expense of many a vanish’d sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see’st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire, That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed, whereon it must expire, Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by. This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.