'Last night,' she murmured sadly to herself,
'I dreamt of falling flowers by shady ponds;
My Spring, ah me! half through its course has sped,
But you return not to your wedded bonds.'
For ever onward flows the mighty stream;
The Spring, half gone, is gliding to its rest;
While on the river and the silent pools
The moonbeams fall obliquely from the west.
And now the moon descending to the verge
Has disappeared beneath the sea-borne dew;
While stretch the waters of the 'Siao and Siang',[1]
And rocks and cliffs, in never-ending view.
How many wanderers by to-night's pale moon
Have met with those from whom so long apart:—
As on the shore midst flowerless trees I stand
Thoughts old and new surge through my throbbing heart!
[1] Two streams flowing into the Yangtze River.
The Beauty of Snow
BY PAO-CHAO
A thousand miles across the Dragon Mountains
The North Wind blows the whirling flakes of snow,
Until they gather on my terraced garden,
And drift before the gate in furrowed row.
Unlike the coloured plum and fragrant peach trees,
Whose buds stretch forth to greet the warm Spring days,
At dawn the snow lies in unsullied whiteness,
But flees to shelter from the sun's bright rays.