I

Scribing lines as it goes, water poured on flat ground
runs east or west or north or south as it flows:
human life is also fated. Why then sigh
as you go forward, or melancholy, sit?
Pour wine to fete thyself, raise up the cup
and do not deign to sing “Hard Traveling.”
Heart-and-mind; they are not wood-and-stone. . .
How might one not bear pain? And if I know
fear as I stagger on, I’ll never deign to speak it.

II

Sir, don’t you see? The grass along the riverbank?
In the winter it withers, come spring it springs again
to line all pathways.
Today, the sun is set, completely gone, already.
Tomorrow morning won’t it rise again?
But when in time shall my way be just so. . .
Once gone, I’m gone forever, banished to the Yellow Springs, below.
In human life the woes are many and the satisfactions few:
so seize the moment when you’re in your prime.
If one of us achieve a noble aim, the rest may take joy in it.
But best keep cash for wine on the bedside table.
Whether my deeds be scribed on bamboo and silk
is surely beyond my knowing.
Life or death, honor or shame? These I leave to High Heaven.

translated by J.P. Seaton