Than the reed is she more winsome.
Love with beauty hard must plead!
In the meadows sought we flowers,
These she gave me—beauteous, rare:
Far above the gift there towers
The dear giver—lovelier, fair!
Among the ‘Lesser Eulogiums’ (Book IV., Ode 5) is one more ambitious in its scope, relating to the completion of a palace of King Siuen, about B.C. 800.
1. On yonder banks a palace, lo! upshoots,
The tender blue of southern hill behind,
Time-founded, like the bamboo’s clasping roots;