While the year sinks westward, I hear a cicada
Bid me to be resolute here in my cell,
Yet it needed the song of those black wings
To break a white-haired prisoner’s heart . . .
His flight is heavy through the fog,
His voice drowns in the windy world.
Who knows if he is singing still?—
Who listens any more to me?

translated by Witter Bynner & Kiang Kang-hu