Fascination
Fair is the pine grove and the mountain stream
That gathers to the valley far below,
The black-winged junks on the dim sea reach, adream,
The pale blue firmament o'er banks of snow.
And her, more fair, more supple smooth than jade,
Gleaming among the dark red woods I follow:
Now lingering, now as a bird afraid
Of pirate wings she seeks the haven hollow.
Vague, and beyond the daylight of recall,
Into the cloudland past my spirit flies,
As though before the gold of autumn's fall,
Before the glow of the moon-flooded skies.
Tranquil Repose
It dwells in the quiet silence,
Unseen upon hill and plain,
'Tis lapped by the tideless harmonies,
It soars with the lonely crane.
As the springtime breeze whose flutter
The silken skirts hath blown,
As the wind-drawn note of the bamboo flute
Whose charm we would make our own, —
Chance-met, it seems to surrender;
Sought, and it lures us on;
Ever shifting in form and fantasy,
It eludes us, and is gone.
The Poet's Vision
Wine that recalls the glow of spring,
Upon the thatch a sudden shower,
A gentle scholar in the bower,
Where tall bamboos their shadows fling,
White clouds in heavens newly clear,
And wandering wings through depths of trees,
Then pillowed in green shade, he sees
A torrent foaming to the mere;
Around his dreams the dead leaves fall;
Calm as the starred chrysanthemum,
He notes the season glories come,
And reads the books that never pall.
Despondent
A gale goes ruffling down the stream,
The giants of the forest crack;
My thoughts are bitter — black as death —
For she, my summer, comes not back.