When will the last flower fall, the last moon fade?
So many sorrows lie behind.
Again last night the east wind filled my room—
O gaze not on the lost kingdom under the bright moon.
Still in her light my palace gleams as jade
(Only from bright cheeks beauty dies).
To know the sum of human suffering
Look at this river rolling eastward in the spring.
translated by Cyril Birch
Chinese poet
Composed on Horseback, Returning from Lakeview Pavilion at Hangchow, Presented to Yü-ju and Lo-tao by Wang An-shih
River’s glint and mountain mist were floating in green;
At sunset we made to return, they stayed a little longer.
Hereafter this scene shall always enter into my dreams;
In dreams I can wander with my old friends.
translated by Jan W. Walls
from To the Waters of the Chia-ling, Two Poems : 2 by Yüan Chen
You, waters with no feeling,
Have you regrets as you flow east?
In my heart are things I cannot express,
Does that make me different from you?
translated by William H. Nienhauser
from Wandering T’ai Mountain by Li Po
I bow, then bow again, deeper, ashamed
I haven’t an immortal’s talent. And yet,
boundless, I can dwindle time and space
away, losing the world in such distances!
translated by David Hinton
Drunk on T’ung-kuan Mountain, A Quatrain by Li Po
I love this T’ung-kuan joy. A thousand
years, and still I’d never leave here.
It makes me dance, my swirling sleeves
sweeping all Five-Pine Mountain clean.
translated by David HintonLi Po
Starting Up Three Gorges by Li Po
Azure heaven pinched between Wu Mountains,
riverwater keeps streaming down like this,
and with riverwater cascading so suddenly
away, we’ll never reach that azure heaven.
Three mornings we start up Huang-niu Gorge,
and three nights find we’ve gone nowhere.
Three mornings and three nights: for once
I’ve forgotten my hair turning white as silk.
translated by David Hinton
Listening to a Monk’s Ch’in Depths by Li Po
Carrying a ch’in cased in green silk, a monk
descended from O-mei Mountain in the west.
When he plays, even in a few first notes,
I hear the pines of ten thousand valleys,
and streams rinse my wanderer’s heart clean.
Echoes linger among temple frost-fall bells,
night coming unnoticed in emerald mountains,
autumn clouds banked up, gone dark and deep.
translated by David Hinton
Written on the Wall While Drunk at Wang’s House North of the Han River by Li Po
I’m like some partridge or quail—
going south, then flying lazily north.
And now I’ve come to find you here,
a little wine returns me to the moon.
translated by David Hinton
A Friend Stays The Night by Li Po
Rinsing sorrows of a thousand forevers
away, we linger out a hundred jars of wine,
the clear night’s clarity filling small talk,
a lucid moon keeping us awake. And after
we’re drunk, we sleep in empty mountains,
all heaven our blanket, earth our pillow.
translated by David Hinton
Thoughts in Night Quiet by Li Po
Seeing moonlight here at my bed
and thinking it was frost on the ground,
I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,
then back, dreaming of my old home.
translated by David Hinton
