CHINESE POEMS BY VARIOUS AUTHORS: My Versions in English

Saying Goodbye on the Plain of Ancient Ruins

Grasses growing lush on the plain

year after year wither and flourish.

No wildfire can consume them all.

In winds of spring they grow again.

Their bright green reaches the far ruined wall.

Their fragrance flows over the ancient road.

Once again we say goodbye here,

a place lush with feelings of parting.

     --Bai Juyi

In the Hills, a Plum Tree Flowers in a Small Garden

Blossoms all have shaken down, and alone

it casts a warm beauty over the garden,

whose slender shadows lie on shallow ponds.

A faint fragrance drifts under a dun moon.

Snowbirds, landing, look again, to see

what dusty butterflies would faint to know.

Lucky me, making friends with whispered verse—

who needs golden goblets or rhythm sticks?

--Liu Bu

Meeting is hard and parting is harder.

The east wind slackens and flowers wither.

The spring silk worm spins silk till it dies.

The wax candle sheds tears till it's ash.

Morning mirror, fretting over disordered hair.

Midnight chanting, not feeling the cold.

Penglai, the faerie mountain, is somewhere near.

Bluebird, would you spy it out for me.

     --Li Shanglin

Alt:  The spring silk worm spins till it dies.
        The wax candle weeps till it's ash.

South Lake is the sum of three rivers.

Mount Lu is the master of all hills.

White sand cleans the river course.

Green pines color the crag heads.

When did the water begin to flow?

When did the mountain begin to be?

Human fate is ever changing.

These forms are alone enduring.

In all the near and far of the cosmos,

present becomes past; this order lasts.

    --Chang Fangsheng



    The Cicada

In the first place,

however refined you are

and able to live on wind and dew,

they will never satisfy your hunger.

So why keep up your bitter cry?

By the fifth hour

your voice is weak and hoarse

in the green, indifferent tree.

I'm just a minor functionary,

a drifting twig.

And the old fields at home

lie wasted and full of weeds.

So thank you for reminding me

that my family has a long history

of pure character.

--Li Shangyin

    Thoughts in the Cold

My guests have all gone,

the river rises to my doorstep,

cicadas cease whirring,

branches fill with dew:

a time when you fill my heart,

the time that passes while I stand

still beneath the Big Dipper,

more distant than spring.

Here beyond the edge

of your Nanjing sky

no messenger comes.

I am left with only

my dreams to divine

if you've found a new friend.

--Li Shangyin

	疑 誤 有 新 知	天 涯 占 夢 數	南 陵 寓 使 遲	北 斗 兼 春 遠	倚 立 自 移 時	永 懷 當 此 節	蟬 休 露 滿 枝	客 去 波 平 檻	涼 思

    The Spring Song of Lady Night

The spring woods

hold flowers of great beauty.

The spring birds

cause thoughts of great grief.

The spring breeze has also great feeling,

blowing open

my gauzy silk skirt.

--Anon., 300-600 C.E.

Lost, a whole army,

        before the gates of a city,

the year before last

        fighting the Yuezhi.

Lost, the torn, scattered tents,

        with no one to collect them.

There were only the tattered banners

        on horses straggling back.

Lost, any news of you,

        along the way from Tibet.

What offerings can I make

        if your fate is unknown?  

Lost, you and I to each other,

        whether or not you still live.

I offer these tears

        from far, far away.

          --Zhang Ji

This road here runs

     up to white clouds.

Spring is as long

     as the clear stream.

At times fallen petals

     float by,

flowing off

     on scented water.

My door idles

     on the mountain path.

My study's deep

     in willow shade;

my sleeves, sunlit

     on sunny days.

       --Liu Shenxu


 
    Autumn Song of Lady Night

Opening the window

to the autumn moon,

she puts out the candle,

slipping off her silk skirt.

And suppressing a smile

within the curtained bed,

she arches her body,

spreading orchid fragrance
    --Anon.

    Playing the Zheng for General Zhou

While playing the zheng

with millet-gold posts,

her fair hands moving

over the jade frame,

hoping that Zhou Yu

will turn and look,

every so often

she plucks the wrong note.

--Li Duan

She, who was in her rooms without sorrow,

turned out for spring, ascends the jade tower,

and, struck by a willow green in the field,

sighs for sending him off to seek titles.

--Wang Chiang-ling

Grasses grow rank around Red Bird Bridge.

Sun sets in the street of mansions.

Swallows from peeling painted eaves

swoop across the doorways of common folk.

--Liu Yuxi

DRINKING ALONE

Wind blows snow straight across the window.

Curl around the stove, open the wine,

and, as a fishing boat in the rain,

Sail asleep down the autumn river. 

      --Du Mu

On the Qinhuai River

With moonlight on sand and mist on cold water,

I tie up by a tavern on the river.

I hear a girl sing, with nothing of his grief,

the captive king's "Blossom of the Inner Court."

--Du Mu



Number 14 of the 19 Music Bureau Poems

Gone and daily receding,
coming and daily more near.
Looking straight out the city gate:
mounds and hills, mounds and hills.
Ancient graves are plowed into fields.
Pine and cypress destroyed for kindling.
Winds of sorrow out of white poplars.
Swish-swish, the sound of the axe men.
Dwelling on returning home--
no track, no trace of a road.
No way there from this longing.

Japanese Poems of the Heian Period and Before: My Versions in English

Almost showed you plum blossoms

that were a light fall of snow.

--Akahito

How few the moments

that my gaze has lit upon

the flowers of spring.

How many the months and days

that I have passed without fruit.

--Fujiwara no Okikase

The sea slips from the shore.

One white wave again stands fast.

A crane in the surf.

--The Emperor Uda

Destinations unknown,

two ships that left harbor

side by side, now diverge.

--Saigyo Hoshi

Before the dubious shrine

I stand dumbstruck and crying.

--Saigyo Hoshi

This world, I try not to see,

still dogs me like a shadow.

--Minamoto no Toshiyori

...to be in this world

the seagull sleeping alone

on the tossing sea...

--Tagaya Masahiro

Leaves fall on the roof,

blurring the silence of night

and the sound of rain.

--Minamoto no Yorizane

Rising and falling, waves

scour the moon in the sea,

effacing nothing.

--Kiyowara Fukayabu

Between the eternals,

the unmoving mountains

and incontinent seas,

we are flowers, quickest

among fleeting flowers.

--Anon.

Long into summer nights

when I think at last of bed

the dawn cuckoo sings

--Tsurayuki

Foam on the water

I am, that still wants to live

for a thousand years.

--Otomo no Yakamochi

To an empty land

she and I would go and live

alone together.

--Otomo no Yakamochi



Sad to meet in dreams:
My hand reaches out to you
and flounders awake.
--Otomo no Yakamochi

Should we never meet,

and entwine,  threads making cord,

now this way, now that,

upon what line shall I string

all the jewels of my life?

--Sakanoe Korenori

The rare tanka I've managed to render as a tanka.



Yes, she may not think of me
not ever forgetting her.
--Anon.



Plum trees bloom again.
Empty as a locust shell,
my own springless world.
--Anon.



Love without requite:
a prayer in the temple
behind a starving god.
--Lady Kasa



But by its own call
on the evergreen mountain
the deer knows the fall.
--Onakatomi Yoshinobu



Unmistakably
even here, far south in Tsu,
winter's come at last

to my cottage, hidden down
in a blanket of rushes.
--Minamoto no Shigeyuki



That this day too comes
to dusk:  more clear with each note
of the temple bell.
--Anon.



Unbearably cold,
sanderlings cried in the wind
across the river

the night I went to see her
whom I loved beyond bearing.
--Tsurayuki

Wang Wei: My Versions in English

Separation Sickness

Red beans of the longing tree grow 
     there in the south.   

Come the spring, the branches bush out 
     and fill with seeds.   

I hope, friend, that you will pick more 
     and more and more   

of what is the best thing for this illness of ours. 

     

alt:  of what is the simple for this illness of ours.

White stones stick up from Bramble Brook.

Red leaves sparse against a cold sky.

No rain now on the mountain path.

My clothes wet from the high green brush.

PASSING THE TEMPLE OF TEEMING FRAGRANCE

The Temple of Teeming Fragrance

measureless miles in summit clouds.

Ancient forest, a pathless way.

Deep mountains, directionless bell.

Spring water over jagged rocks.

Yellow sun on cool green pines.

Twilight, winding pool.  Quiet sitting

uncoils the poison dragon of the heart.

    

Monks make incense at the Temple of Teeming Fragrance.

DEER FENCE

Empty Mountain.
Seeing no one.
Hearing someone's
echoing voice.
The late day sun
enters again
the deep forest,
shining once more
on the green moss.

In my old age, I want only peace.

The ten thousand things are not my concern.

I've no plan for the rest of my life

but to come back to this, my ancient woods.

Piney wind blows my girdle open.

Mountain moon lights upon the lute I play.

So where's the warp and weft of the world?

Fishermen's songs come far up the inlet.

Wang Wei was a painter as well.                                                                

Du Fu: My Versions in English

SPRING PROSPECT

The nation in ruins,
mountains and rivers remain.

The city in spring's
deep in grass and trees.

My tears at the passing days
fall as dew from the flowers.

Embittered by separation,
I startle at birdsong.

Beacon fires have blazed
for all these three months.

For a letter from home
I'd give ten thousand in gold.

I've pulled so at my white hair
my hatpin hardly holds.
--Du Fu


Thanks to Joel Lipman, the poet laureate of Lucas County, for the suggestion to separate the couplets. Helps to break up the clunkiness, in English, of always-endstopped lines.

Another Version:

The nation in ruin,

mountains and rivers remain.

The city in spring,

deep in grass and trees.

Lost in wretched times,

weeping over flowers.

Sunk in loneliness,

startling at birdsong.

Beacon fires,

burning for three months.

Family letters,

worth thousands in gold.

Pulling so at my white hair
that my hatpin barely holds.


春望

国破山河在
城春草木深
感时花溅泪
恨别鸟惊心
烽火连三月
家书抵万金
白头搔更短
浑欲不胜簪


chūn wàng

guó pò shān hé zài
chéng chūn cǎo mù shēn
gǎn shí huā jiàn lèi
hèn bié niǎo jīng xīn
fēng huǒ lián sān yuè
jiā shū dǐ wàn jīn
bái tóu sāo gèng duǎn
hún yù bù shēng zān

Thoughts of the Night Traveller

Slender grass in the shore breeze.
Tall mast on a lonely boat.
Stars sink over spreading fields.
The moon rides on the river.
Too old and sick for office--
and will scribblings make my name?
Drifting, drifting, what am I?
One gull between earth and sky.




FACING SNOW


Battle cries, many new ghosts.
Old, alone--worry and grief.
Ragged clouds are low at dusk.
Snow swirls around and around.
Ladle and cup--green wine gone.
Dying embers--stove still red.
I sit, no news from anywhere,
my books blank with my sorrow.
     --my tr.

对雪

战哭多新鬼

愁吟独老翁

乱云低薄暮

急雪舞回风

瓢弃尊无绿

炉存火似红

数州消息断

愁坐正书空

MOONLIT NIGHT


Just now, alone in our room,
you gaze at the Fuzhou moon.
Our children--I ache for them
from far away--they don't see
why you brood upon Changon.
Fragrant fog scents your gathered hair.
Lustrous moon chills your slender arms.
When, among the gauzy curtains,
will we lean together again,
these tears dried on our faces,
their traces limned in moonlight?




On the River I Saw the Water Surging like the Ocean:  A Sketchy Account

I have always been a little off,

      so driven by love of well-made verse,

pursuing that word of startling rightness,

      I'd sooner die than rest.

In my reckless old age,

      my words and I overwhelm each other.

So you needn't fear, birds and flowers,

     for the secrets of your spring.

Just now, I've put in a pier

      to dangle a fishing line from.

Before, I was angling from an anchored raft

      in place of a boat.

Who could I get with the mind of a master

      like Tao or Xie

to help out with my writing

      and wander the nearby world with me?

--Du Fu, my tr.

Birds are whiter on the blue river.

Flowers flame up on the green mountain.

Spring, I see, has come and gone again.

What day--what year--will I return home?

--my tr.

HITOMARU: My Versions in English

Not combing my morning hair,

so lately pillowed in his hand.

Dim in the mist of morning

off the shore of Akashi:

the island hiding the boat

upon which sail all my thoughts.

Walking past my door

unglancing: how she tells me

"so then, die of love."

Ono no Komachi: My Versions in English

Imagining My Death and Cremation

Sad to end as just

a green haze drifting pale

over distant fields.

Falling, the long rain,

the color from the flower,

the eye through the world.

Should the stream whisper "come,"

like a severed reed,

I would float away,

adrift as my heart.



Moonlight pouring through the trees
fills me up with autumn.

Li Bai: My Versions in English

Blue mountains to the north of town.

White water to the east of town.

We stop here for a last goodbye:

Thistledown flies a thousand li.

Now you must be a floating cloud,

and your old friend, the setting sun.

Waving, each goes his separate way.

Parting horses nicker and neigh.

As flowers bloom and leaves unfold,

my friend sets out, east for Guanling.

His solitary sail recedes,

vanishing where river meets sky.

Two versions of "Jade Stairs"

Resentment on the Jade Stairs

Midnight on the stairs of jade,

white dew soaks her silken hose.

Draw down then the crystal shade:

fall's moon glitters in its gems.

Stood Up on the Jade Stairs

Midnight on the stairs of jade,

white dew soaked your silken hem.

Draw down then the crystal shade:

moonlight glitters in its gems.

High Summer

Lazing in the mountain wood,

waving a white feather fan,

I get up, open my clothes,

hang my headband on a rock.

Green pine wind plays through my hair.

Wine with the Mountain Hermit

We drink amid the mountain flowers.

A cup, one more, and then another.

I'm in a stupor, you stagger off.

Come back with your lute, when you can.

Alone in My Cups

Drinking wine, unaware

of nightfall. Fallen flowers

fill the folds of my clothes.

Getting up and walking

to the moonlit river,

where no birds and few men

remain.