This pool has limpid water, and there deep the lotus grows;
Its little leaves are round as coins, and only yet half-blown;
Going to the jutting verge, near a clear and shallow spot,
I mark my present looks, try how of late my face appears.
My curls and hair are all awry, my face is quite begrimed;
In whose house lives the girls so ugly as your slave?
’Tis only because that every day the tea I’m forced to pick,
The soaking rains and driving winds have spoiled my early charms.
With the morning comes the wind and rain together, fierce and high,
But the little hat and basket tall still must I take along;