Jade steps glistening with dew,
lingered late stockings wet
Crystal curtain bides adieu,
Clear autumn the moon unveiled.
Jade Steps Lament - 玉阶怨
The Phoenix Bird Tower - 登金陵凤凰台
Here once on the Phoenix Bird Tower
the phoenix birds came to rest,
Now the birds are gone, the tower empty;
only the river flows aimlessly on.
Here where the garden of Wu palace bloomed,
the deep grass hides the paths;
Where the kings of Chin vaunted their regalia,
is only an old hill.
I see the three peaks hang aloft
as though half-dropt from the sky,
And the river divide in two streams,
holding the White Heron Island between.
But the floating clouds cover the sun,
And the city of Chang-an is lost in distance and gloom.
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.
A Farewell to Secretary Shu-Yun at the Hsieh T’iao Villa in Hsuan-Chou - 宣州谢楼饯别校书叔云
Since yesterday had to throw me and bolt,
Today has hurt my heart even more.
The autumn wildgeese have a long wind for escort
As I face them from this villa, drinking my wine.
The bones of great writers are your brushes, in the School of Heaven,
And I am a Lesser Hsieh growing up by your side.
We both are exalted to distant thought,
Aspiring to the sky and the bright moon.
But since water still flows, though we cut it with our swords,
And sorrows return, though we drown them with wine,
Since the world can in no way answer our craving,
I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishing-boat.
A Song of the Palace - 宫词
Now that the palace-gate has softly closed on its flowers,
Ladies file out to their pavilion of jade,
Abrim to the lips with imperial gossip
But not daring to breathe it with a parrot among them.
Sparrow’s Ladle - 芃兰
The Sparrow’s Ladle is propped up [by a stick],
the lad wears a fine prong.
Despite this handsome prong,
he cannot know me.
He desires to satisfy,
but his girdle swings low.
Like the Sparrow Ladle’s leaf,
the boy wear’s the archer’s thumb ring.
Though it is just a pendent thumb ring,
He cannot protect me.
He claims to fulfill me,
But his girdle hangs low.