Where, before me, are the ages that have gone?
And where, behind me, are the coming generations?
I think of heaven and earth, without limit, without end,
And I am all alone and my tears fall down.
(Written to Music for Lady Yang)
There’s a perfume stealing moist from a shaft of red blossom,
And a mist, through the heart, from the magical Hill of Wu –
The palaces of China have never known such beauty –
Not even Flying Swallow with all her glittering garments.
(Written to Music for Lady Yang)
Lovely now together, his lady and his flowers
Lighten for ever the Emperor’s eye,
As he listens to the sighing of the far spring wind
Where she leans on a railing in the Aloe Pavilion.
So bright a gleam on the foot of my bed –
Could there have been a frost already?
Lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight.
Sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home.
Slow and reluctant, I have waited
Day after day, till now I must go.
How sweet the road-side flowers might be
If they did not mean good-bye, old friend.
The Lords of the Realm are harsh to us
And men of affairs are not our kind.
I will turn back home, I will say no more,
I will close the gate of my old garden.
The water of the River Ba is swift like an arrow;
The boat on the River Ba slips away
As if it had wings.
It will travel in ten days three thousand li.
And you are going, my dear -
Ah, how many years before you return?
A Song of Pure Happiness I - 清平调・其一
(Written to Music for Lady Yang)
Her robe is a cloud, her face a flower;
Her balcony, glimmering with the bright spring dew,
Is either the tip of earth’s Jade Mountain
Or a moon-edged roof of paradise.