For ever hard to meet, and as hard to part.
Each flower spoils in the failing East wind.
Spring’s silkworms wind till death their heart’s threads:
The wick of the candle turns to ash before its tears dry.
Morning’s mirror’s only care, a change at her cloudy temples:
Saying over a poem in the night, does she sense the chill in the moonbeams?
Not far, from here to Fairy Hill.
Bluebird, be quick now, spy me out the road.

translated by A.C. Graham