I don’t want to come, yet suddenly I’m here;
I don’t want to go, and suddenly I’m gone.
Don’t know where I’ve come from or where I’m going.
In this, of course, there is true waxing and waning.
Since Heaven can’t speak, I’ll tell on its behalf:
Just wait for Old Master Chaos to give back my life—
If he looks for me, he’ll naturally find me.
Translated by J.P. Seaton
18th Century Chinese poetry
Sleeplessness by Yüan Mei
One rain, and all the flowers done!
Third watch, and all the music still.
Except what strikes my ear and stays my sleep:
From windy branches the last drop falls.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Rain Passes by Yüan Mei
Rain passes, washing the face of the mountain;
Clouds come, the mountain’s in a dream.
Clouds, rain, come and go as they please.
The green mountain, as always, is unmoved.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Starting At Dawn by Sun Yün-feng
Under the waning moon
In the dawn—
A frosty bell.
My horse’s hooves
Trample through the yellow leaves.
As the sun rises
Not a human being is visible
Only the sound of a stream
Through the misty trees.
translated by Kenneth Rexroth & Ling Chung,+
from To Dispel the Cold: Two Poems on Spring: I: Small Pavilion by Hung Liang-chi
Where is the first sign of spring?
Spring comes earliest to a small pavilion:
Upon the shadow of a bamboo blind in the moonlight,
In the tender notes from a flute in the breeze,
In the greening of a branch breaking out at the tip,
In the drippings of a candle of red passion.
In the whispered words overheard past midnight,
In the scented breath wafted beyond the wall.
translated by Irving Lo
Mad Words by Yüan Mei
To learn to be without desire, you must desire that;
Better to do as you please: sing idleness:
Floating clouds and water running—where’s their source?
In all the vastness of the sea and sky, you’ll never find it.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Willow Flowers by Yüan Mei
Willow flowers, snowflakes
The same; they’re feckless—
No matter whose garden they fall in,
They always follow the wind away.
translated by J.P. Seaton
Money by Yüan Mei
There’s something to love in each thing in the world
Except money: that most insipid of all things:
In life, you can’t get it;
In death, you can’t take it.
translated by J.P. Seaton
from On Poetry: III by Chao Yi
The best of poetry comes from the destitute, but my pocket is not yet empty;
I gather, it’s all because I haven’t perfected my skill as a poet.
Having fish to eat or bear’s paw? I admit, I’m greedy for both;
I yearn for skill in poetry, yet how I dread being poor!
translated by Irving Lo
Spring Day III by Yuan Mei
A hermit’s gate is made of the stuff of brooms,
but sweep as it may, the clouds won’t stay away.
So up through the clouds, for sun I came,
with wine, to this high tower.
At evening, the sun declined
to come on down the mountain with me.
“Tomorrow,” I ask,
“you coming, or not?”
translated by J.P. Seaton
Leonard Durso 