Category Archives: Sentiment and Reflection
Grasses - 草
Boundless grasses over the plain
Come and go with every season;
Wildfire never quite consumes them –
They are tall once more in the spring wind.
Sweet they press on the old high-road
And reach the crumbling city-gate….
O Prince of Friends, you are gone again….
I hear them sighing after you.
Orchid and Orange I - 感遇・其一
Tender orchid-leaves in spring
And cinnamon-blossoms bright in autumn
Are as self-contained as life is,
Which conforms them to the seasons.
Yet why will you think that a forest-hermit,
Allured by sweet winds and contented with beauty,
Would no more ask to be transplanted
Than would any other natural flower?
Orchid and Orange II - 感遇・其二
Here, south of the Yangzi, grows a red orangetree.
All winter long its leaves are green,
Not because of a warmer soil,
But because its’ nature is used to the cold.
Though it might serve your honourable guests,
You leave it here, far below mountain and river.
Circumstance governs destiny.
Cause and effect are an infinite cycle.
You plant your peach-trees and your [...]
I Pass Through the Lu Dukedom with a Sigh and a Sacrifice for Confucius - 经邹鲁祭孔子而叹之
O Master, how did the world repay
Your life of long solicitude? –
The Lords of Zou have misprized your land,
And your home has been used as the palace of Lu….
You foretold that when phoenixes vanished, your fortunes too would end,
You knew that the captured unicorn would be a sign of the dose of your teaching….
Can this [...]
Drifting - 宣州谢楼饯别校书叔云
We cannot keep the gold of yesterday;
Today’s dun clouds we cannot roll away.
Now the long, wailing flight of geese brings autumn in its train,
So to the view-tower cup in hand to fill and drink again,
And dream of the great singers of the past,
Their fadeless lines of fire and beauty cast.
I too have felt the wild-bird [...]
On a Gate-Tower at Yu-Chou - 登幽州台歌