(1.) “The setting sun shines low upon my door
Ere dusk enwraps the river fringed with spring;
Sweet perfumes rise from gardens by the shore,
And smoke, where crews their boats to anchor bring.
“Now twittering birds are roosting in the bower,
And flying insects fill the air around....
O wine, who gave to thee thy subtle power?
A thousand cares in one small goblet drowned!”
(2.) “A petal falls!—the spring begins to fail,
And my heart saddens with the growing gale.
Come then, ere autumn spoils bestrew the ground,
Do not forget to pass the wine-cup round.
Kingfishers build where man once laughed elate,
And now stone dragons guard his graveyard gate!
Who follows pleasure, he alone is wise;
Why waste our life in deeds of high emprise?”
(3.) “My home is girdled by a limpid stream,
And there in summer days life’s movements pause,
Save where some swallow flits from beam to beam,
And the wild sea-gull near and nearer draws.
“The goodwife rules a paper board for chess;
The children beat a fish-hook out of wire;
My ailments call for physic more or less,
What else should this poor frame of mine require?”
(4.) “Alone I wandered o’er the hills to seek the hermit’s den,
While sounds of chopping rang around the forest’s leafy glen.
I passed on ice across the brook, which had not ceased to freeze,
As the slanting rays of afternoon shot sparkling through the trees.
“I found he did not joy to gloat o’er fetid wealth by night,
But, far from taint, to watch the deer in the golden morning light....
My mind was clear at coming; but now I’ve lost my guide,
And rudderless my little bark is drifting with the tide!”
(5.) “From the Court every eve to the pawnshop I pass,
To come back from the river the drunkest of men;
As often as not I’m in debt for my glass;—
Well, few of us live to be threescore and ten.
The butterfly flutters from flower to flower,
The dragon-fly sips and springs lightly away,
Each creature is merry its brief little hour,
So let us enjoy our short life while we may.”
Here is a specimen of his skill with the “stop-short,” based upon a disease common to all Chinese, poets or otherwise,—nostalgia:—