Into the water.
I am in love with the east breeze.
Not that he brings the scent of the flowering of peaches
White on Eastern Hill;
But that he has drifted the willow-leaf
Against my boat.
I am in love with the willow-leaf.
Not that he speaks of green spring
Coming to us again;
But that the dreaming girl
Pricked there a name with her embroidery needle,
And the name is mine.
From the Chinese of Chang Chiu Ling (675-740).
I hear a woman singing in my garden,
But I look at the moon in spite of her.
I have no thought of trying to find the singer
Singing in my garden;
I am looking at the moon.
And I think the moon is honouring me
With a long silver look.
I blink
As bats fly black across the ray;
But when I raise my head the silver look
Is still upon me.
The moon delights to make eyes of poets her mirror,
And poets are many as dragon scales
On the moonlit sea.
From the Chinese of Chang Jo Hsu.
We have walked over the high grass under the wet trees
To the gravel path beside the lake, we two.
A noise of light-stepping shadows follows now
From the dark green mist in which we waded.
Six geese drop one by one into the shivering lake;
They say "Peeng" and then after a long time, "Peeng,"
Swimming out softly to the moon.
Three of the balancing dancing geese are dim and black,
And three are white and clear because of the moon;
In what explanatory dawn will our souls
Be seen to be the same?
From the Chinese ofJ. Wing(nineteenth century).
The jade staircase is bright with dew.
Slowly, this long night, the queen climbs,
Letting her gauze stockings and her elaborate robe
Drag in the shining water.
Dazed with the light,
She lowers the crystal blind
Before the door of the pavilion.
It leaps down like a waterfall in sunlight.
While the tiny clashing dies down,
Sad and long dreaming,
She watches between the fragments of jade light
The shining of the autumn moon.
From the Chinese of Li Po (705-762).
The young lady shows like a thing of light
In the shadowy deeps of a fair window
Grown round with flowers.
She is naked and leans forward, and her flesh like frost
Gathers the light beyond the stone brim.
Only the hair made ready for the day
Suggests the charm of modern clothing.
Her blond eyebrows are the shape of very young moons.
The shower's bright water overflows
In a pure rain.
She lifts one arm into an urgent line,
Cooling her rose fingers
On the grey metal of the spray.
If I could choose my service, I would be the shower
Dashing over her in the sunlight.
From the Chinese of J.S. Ling (1901).
One moment I place your two bright pearls against my robe,
And the red silk mirrors a rose in each.
Why did I not meet you before I married?
See, there are two tears quivering at my lids;
I am giving back your pearls.
From the Chinese of Chang Chi (770-850).
It rained last night,
But fair weather has come back
This morning.
The green clusters of the palm-trees
Open and begin to throw shadows.
But sorrow drifts slowly down about me.
I come and go in my room,
Heart-heavy with memories.
The neighbour green casts shadows of green
On my blind;
The moss, soaked in dew,
Takes the least print
Like delicate velvet.
I see again a gauze tunic of oranged rose
With shadowy underclothes of grenade red.
How things still live again.
I go and sit by the day balustrade
And do nothing
Except count the plains
And the mountains
And the valleys
And the rivers
That separate from my Spring.
From the Chinese (early nineteenth century).
The rain is due to fall,
The wind blows softly.
The branches of the cinnamon are moving,
The begonias stir on the green mounds.
Bright are the flying leaves,
The falling flowers are many.
The wind lifted the dry dust,
And he is lifting the wet dust;
Here and there the wind moves everything
He passes under light gauze
And touches me.
I am alone with the beating of my heart.
There are leagues of sky,
And the water is flowing very fast.
Why do the birds let their feathers
Fall among the clouds?
I would have them carry my letters,
But the sky is long.
The stream flows east
And not one wave comes back with news.
The scented magnolias are shining still,
But always a few are falling.
I close his box on my guitar of jasper
And lay aside my jade flute.
I am alone with the beating of my heart.
Stay with me to-night,
Old songs.
From the Chinese of Liu Chi (1311-1375).
Reading in my book this cold night,
I have forgotten to go to sleep.
The perfumes have died on the gilded bed-cover;
The last smoke must have left the hearth
When I was not looking.
My beautiful friend snatches away the lamp.
Do you know what the time is?
From the Chinese of Yuan Mei (1715-1797).
Winter scourges his horses
Through the North,
His hair is bitter snow
On the great wind.
The trees are weeping leaves
Because the nests are dead,
Because the flowers were nests of scent
And the nests had singing petals
And the flowers and nests are dead.
Your voice brings back the songs
Of every nest,
Your eyes bring back the sun
Out of the South,
Violets and roses peep
Where you have laughed the snow away
And kissed the snow away,
And in my heart there is a garden still
For the lost birds.
Song of Daghestan.
Lonely rose out-splendouring legions of roses,
How could the nightingales behold you and not sing?
By Rustwell of Georgia (from the Tariel, twelfth century).
Love brings the tiny sweat into your hair
Like stars marching in the dead of night.
From the Hindustani of Mir Taqui (eighteenth century).
I desire the door-sill of my beloved
More than a king's house;
I desire the shadow of the wall where her beauty hides
More than the Delhi palaces.
Why did you wait till spring;
Were not my hands already full of red-thorned roses?
My heart is yours,
So that I know not which heart I hear sighing:
Yaquin, Yaquin, Yaquin, foolish Yaquin.
From the Hindustani of Yaquin (eighteenth century).
Joy fills my eyes, remembering your hair, with tears,
And these tears roll and shine;
Into my thoughts are woven a dark night with raindrops
And the rolling and shining of love songs.
From the Hindustani of Mir Taqui (eighteenth century).
Ever your rose face or black curls are with Shaguil;
Because your curls are night and your face is day.
From the Hindustani of Shaguil (eighteenth century).
Now that the wind has taught your veil to show your eyes and hair,
All the world is bowing down to your dear head;
Faith has crept away to die beside the tomb of prayer,
And men are kneeling to your hair, and God is dead.
From the Hindustani of Hatifi (eighteenth century).
A love-sick heart dies when the heart is whole,
For all the heart's health is to be sick with love.
From the Hindustani of Miyan Jagnu (eighteenth century).
Tears in the moonlight,
You know why,
Have marred the flowers
On my rose sleeve.
Ask why.
From the Japanese of Hide-Yoshi.
The crows have wakened me
By cawing at the moon.
I pray that I shall not think of him;
I pray so intently
That he begins to fill my whole mind.
This is getting on my nerves;
I wonder if there is any of that wine left.
JapaneseStreet Song.
Although I shall not see his face
For the low riding of the ship,
The three armorial oak-leaves on his cloak
Will be enough.
But what if I make a mistake
And call to the wrong man?
Or make no sign at all,
And it is he?
JapaneseStreet Song.
My desires are like the white snows on Fuji
That grow but never melt.
I am becoming proud of my bad reputation;
And the more men say,
We cannot understand why she loves him,
The less I care.
I am sure that in a very short time
I shall give myself to him.
JapaneseStreet Song.
Remembering what passed
Under the scent of the plum-tree,
I asked the plum-tree for tidings
Of that other.
Alas ... the cold moon of spring....
From the Japanese of Fujiwara Ietaka. (1158-1237).
In the fifth month,
When orange-trees
Fill all the world with scent,
I think of the sleeve
Of a girl who loved me.
From the Japanese of Nari-hira.
The chief flower