Written when the poet was about sixty-five
Two top-knots not yet plaited into one.
Of thirty years—just beyond half.
You who are really a lady of silks and satins
Are now become my hill and stream companion!
At the spring fountains together we splash and play:
On the lovely trees together we climb and sport.
Her cheeks grow rosy, as she quickens her sleeve-dancing:
Her brows grow sad, as she slows her song’s tune.
Don’t go singing the Song of the Willow Branches,[93]
When there’s no one here with a heart for you to break!
[93] A plaintive love-song, to which Po Chü-i had himself written words.
DREAMING OF YÜAN CHĒN
This was written eight years after Yüan Chēn’s death, when Po-Chü-i was sixty-eight.
At night you came and took my hand and we wandered together in my dream;
When I woke in the morning there was no one to stop the tears that fell on my handkerchief.
On the banks of the Ch’ang my aged body three times[94] has passed through sickness;
At Hsien-yang[95] to the grasses on your grave eight times has autumn come.
You lie buried beneath the springs and your bones are mingled with the clay.
I—lodging in the world of men; my hair white as snow.
A-wei and Han-lang[96] both followed in their turn;
Among the shadows of the Terrace of Night did you know them or not?
[94] Since you died.
[95] Near Ch’ang-an, modern Si-ngan-fu.
[96] Affectionate names of Li Chien and Ts’ui Hsüan-liang.