First Month: at Ch’ung-jang House by Li Shang-yin

Secret behind locks and double bars, covered with green moss.
In the deepest corridors, innermost chambers, pacing to and fro.
A presage that the wind will rise–the halo round the moon.
The season of cold dews still, the buds unopened.
A bar sweeps past the flap of the blind. Endless tossing and turning.
A mouse unsettles the cobweb on the window, startles with brief suspicions.
With the lamp at my back I talk alone to a fragrance still in the air,
And unawares, just as before, sing Rise in the Night and Come.

translated by A.C. Graham

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