from the heart

The Pledge by Zhao Lihong

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What is craved into rock
Is perhaps not imperishable
What gets printed
Isn’t necessarily immortal

Things floating away like hazy smoke
Are not absolutely doomed to vanish
The shooting star that plummets
Will not necessarily disappear

A sincere smile
And a glance like unheard lightning
Coming from the heart
Are far better
Than a solemn vow of love
That sounds like a thunderbolt

translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin

from a song by Bernart De Ventadorn

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It is worthless to write a line
if the song proceed not from the heart
nor can the song come from the heart
if there is no love in it.

Maligning fools, failing all else, brag,
but love does not spoil,
but countered by love, fills,
fulfilling grows firm.
A fool’s love is like verse poor in the making,
only appearances and the name having,
for it loves nothing except itself, can
take nothing of good,
corrupts the rhyme.

And their singing is not worth a dime
whose song comes not from the heart.
If love has not set his roots there
the song cannot put forth shoots there: so
my song is superior, for I turn to it
mouth eyes mind heart
and there is the joy of love in it.
And the binding glance is food for it
and the barter of sighs is food for it
and if desire is not equal between them
there is no good in it.

translated by Paul Blackburn