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Tz'u No. 9 (Weary)

To the tune of "Rinsing Silk Stream"

Saddened by the dying spring, I am too weary
to rearrange my hair.
Plum flowers, newly fallen, drift about the courtyard
in the evening wind.
The moon looks pale and light clouds float
to and fro.

Incense lies idle in the jade duck-shaped burner.
The cherry-red bed-curtain is drawn close,
concealing its tassels.
Can Tung-Hsi's horn still ward off the cold?

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Tz'u No. 8

To the tune of "Rinsing Silk Stream"

My courtyard is small, windows idle,
spring is getting old.
Screens unrolled cast heavy shadows.
In my upper-story chamber, speechless,
I play on my jasper lute.

Clouds rising from distant mountains
hasten the fall of dusk.
Gentle wind and drizzling rain
cause a pervading gloom.
Pear blossoms can hardly keep from withering,
but droop.

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Tz'u No. 15

To the tune of "Rinsing Silk Stream"

Thousands of light flakes of crushed gold
for its blossoms,
Trimmed jade for its layers of leaves.
This flower has the air of scholar Yen Fu.
How brilliant!

Plum flowers are too common;
Lilacs too coarse when compared.
Yet, its penetrating fragrance
drives away my fond dreams
of far away places.
How merciless!

poem by Li Ching Chao
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The Double Ninth Festival

To the tune of "Intoxicated Under the Shadow of Flowers"

Light mists and heavy clouds,
melancholy the long dreary day.

In the golden censer
the burning incense is dying away.

It is again time
for the lovely Double-Ninth Festival;

The coolness of midnight
penetrates my screen of sheer silk
and chills my pillow of jade.


After drinking wine at twilight
under the chrysanthemum hedge,

My sleeves are perfumed
by the fragrance of the plants.

Oh, I cannot say it is not endearing,

Only, when the west wind stirs the curtain,
I see that I am more gracile
than the yellow flowers.

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Tz'u No. 7

To the tune of "Rinsing Silk Stream"

Let not the deep cup be filled
with rich, amber-colored wine;
My mind was eased of sorrow
even before I was drunk.
Distant bells have already echoed
in the evening breeze.

My dream is broken
as the scent of incense vanishes.
Too small, the hairpin of the gold
of warding-off-cold
loosens its hold of my tresses.

I awake to find myself blankly facing
the red flickering glow
of the candle.

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Tz'u No. 12

To the tune of "Happy Event Is Nigh"

The wind ceases; fallen flowers pile high.
Outside my screen, petals collect in heaps of red
and snow-white.

This reminds me that after the blooming
of the cherry-apple tree
It is time to lament the dying spring.

Singing and drinking have come to an end;
jade cups are empty;
Lamps are flickering.

Hardly able to bear the sorrows and regrets
of my dreams,
I hear the mournful cry of the cuckoo.

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Reading An Anthology Of Chinese Poems Of The Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire The Length And Clarity Of Their Titles

It seems these poets have nothing
up their ample sleeves
they turn over so many cards so early,
telling us before the first line
whether it is wet or dry,
night or day, the season the man is standing in,
even how much he has had to drink.

Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow.
Maybe it is snowing on a town with a beautiful name.

"Viewing Peonies at the Temple of Good Fortune
on a Cloudy Afternoon" is one of Sun Tung Po's.
"Dipping Water from the River and Simmering Tea"
is another one, or just
"On a Boat, Awake at Night."

And Lu Yu takes the simple rice cake with
"In a Boat on a Summer Evening
I Heard the Cry of a Waterbird.
It Was Very Sad and Seemed To Be Saying
My Woman Is Cruel--Moved, I Wrote This Poem."

There is no iron turnstile to push against here
as with headings like "Vortex on a String,"
"The Horn of Neurosis," or whatever.
No confusingly inscribed welcome mat to puzzle over.

Instead, "I Walk Out on a Summer Morning
to the Sound of Birds and a Waterfall"
is a beaded curtain brushing over my shoulders.

And "Ten Days of Spring Rain Have Kept Me Indoors"
is a servant who shows me into the room
where a poet with a thin beard
is sitting on a mat with a jug of wine
whispering something about clouds and cold wind,
about sickness and the loss of friends.

How easy he has made it for me to enter here,
to sit down in a corner,
cross my legs like his, and listen.

poem by Billy Collins
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Tz'u No. 18

To the tune of "Intoxicated in the Shadow of Flowers"

Thin mist, dense clouds, a grief-stricken day;
auspicious incense burns in the gold animal.
Once again, it is the joyous mid-autumn festival,
but a midnight chill
touches my jade pillow and silk bed-screen.

I drink wine by the eastern fence in the yellow dusk.
Now a dark fragrance fills
my sleeves and makes me spin.
The bamboo blinds sway in the west wind.
And I am even thinner than a yellow flower.

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Tz'u No. 17 (He Is Gone)

To the tune of "Wu Ling Spring"

Wind ceased, the dust is scented
with the fallen flowers.
Though day is getting late, I am too weary
to attend to my hair.
Things remain as ever, yet he is here no more,
and all is finished.
Fain would I speak, but tears flow first.

They say that at the Twin Brooks
spring is still fair.
I, too, wish to row a boat there.
But I am afraid that the little skiff
on the Twin Brooks
Could not bear the heavy load of my grief.

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Tz'u No. 10 (Exile)

To the tune of "Bodhisattva Aliens"

Soft breezes, mild sunshine,
spring is still young.
The sudden change of the light
brightened my spirit.

But upon awakening from slumber,
I felt the chill air;
The plum flower withered in my hair.

Where can I call my native land?
Forget - I cannot, except in wine
when I drown my care.

Incense was lighted when I went to sleep;
Though the embers are now cold,
the warmth of wine still burns on.

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Under the Pines

"LIFE is sad," says the wind in the pines
To the still soul listening,
While the pale, pale day declines
Like a white bird on the wing.
"Life is sad," says the quiet earth
5
Under the churchyard wall,
Where the spring flowers have their birth
And the autumn leaflets fall.
"Life is sad," say the daisies that blow there
And stretch out their heads to the sun;
10
"Life is sad," say the poor hearts that go there
To weep when the day's work is done.
"Life is sad," from below, from on high,
From forest and meadow and tree,
From the clouds that drift over the sky
15
And the days that die into the sea.
Then up and be brave with thy sorrow,
Like a man with his face to the blast;
Not from hope of the joys of to-morrow,
Nor rest when the warfare is past;
20

But strong that weak souls may grow strong,
That men may take heart by the way,
Till the heavens break forth with the song
That will herald eternal day.

poem by Frederick George Scott
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Tz'u No. 13

To the tune of "Song of Peace"

Year by year, in the snow,
I have often gathered plum flowers,
intoxicated with their beauty.
Fondling them impudently
I got my robe wet with their lucid tears.

This year I have drifted to the corner
of the sea and the edge
of the horizon,
My temples have turned grey.

Judging by the gust of the evening wind,
It is unlikely I will again
enjoy the plum blossoms.

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Legends

I

A MAN builded a bugle for the storms to blow.
The focused winds hurled him afar.
He said that the instrument was a failure.

II

When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: "Why?"
He replied: "Because no one admired me."

III

A man said: "Thou tree!"
The tree answered with the same scorn: "Thou man!
Thou art greater than I only in thy possibilities."

IV

A warrior stood upon a peak and defied the stars.
A little magpie, happening there, desired the soldier's plume, and so plucked it.

V

The wind that waves the blossoms sang, sang, sang from age to age.
The flowers were made curious by this joy.
"Oh, wind," they said, "why sing you at your labour, while we, pink beneficiaries, sing not, but idle, idle, idle from age to age?"

poem by Stephen Crane
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Tz'u No. 4

To the tune of "Like a Dream"

Last night a sprinkling of rain,
a violent wind.

After a deep sleep, still not recovered
from the lingering effect of wine,
I inquired of the one rolling up the screen;
But the answer came: "The cherry-apple blossoms
are still the same."

"Oh, don't you know, don't you know?
The red must be getting thin,
while the green is becoming plump."

poem by Li Ching Chao
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Michael Furey

That night was cold,
The wind was biting.
All over Ireland
the snow was falling

"I was packing
my trousseau,
To Dublin town
I was to go."
"I heard a pebble
strike my pane.
A moment passed,
then, there, again."
"I looked out
On the snow filled lane.
That's when I saw him,
Saw my Michael.
His pale face raised
toward my light.
Like an angel
lost in contemplation."
"Michael's health was not the best.
His lungs were weak
and fluid filled."
"Soon after I had left the West,
I heard that he had fallen ill."
"He's buried now near Sligo town,
between Ben Bulben and the sea.
'May my Michael rest in peace,
I think he died for love of me.'

poem by John F. McCullagh
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When Night Comes

To the tune of "Telling My Most Intimate Feelings"

When night comes,
I am so flushed with wine,
I undo my hair slowly:
a plum calyx is
stuck on a damaged branch.
I wake dazed when smoke
breaks my spring sleep.
The dream distant,
so very distant;
and it is quiet, so very quiet.
The moon spins and spins.
The kingfisher blinds are drawn;
and yet I rub the injured bud,
and yet I twist in my fingers this fragrance,
and yet I possess these moments of time!

poem by Li Ching Chao
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At Lulworth Cove a Century Back

Had I but lived a hundred years ago
I might have gone, as I have gone this year,
By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,
And Time have placed his finger on me there:

"You see that man?" -- I might have looked, and said,
"O yes: I see him. One that boat has brought
Which dropped down Channel round Saint Alban's Head.
So commonplace a youth calls not my thought."

"You see that man?" -- "Why yes; I told you; yes:
Of an idling town-sort; thin; hair brown in hue;
And as the evening light scants less and less
He looks up at a star, as many do."

"You see that man?" -- "Nay, leave me!" then I plead,
"I have fifteen miles to vamp across the lea,
And it grows dark, and I am weary-kneed:
I have said the third time; yes, that man I see!"

"Good. That man goes to Rome -- to death, despair;
And no one notes him now but you and I:
A hundred years, and the world will follow him there,
And bend with reverence where his ashes lie."

poem by Thomas Hardy
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The Gardener LXXXIII: She Dwelt on the Hillside

She dwelt on the hillside by edge
of a maize-field, near the spring that
flows in laughing rills through the
solemn shadows of ancient trees. The
women came there to fill their jars,
and travellers would sit there to rest
and talk. She worked and dreamed
daily to the tune of the bubbling
stream.
One evening the stranger came down
from the cloud-hidden peak; his locks
were tangled like drowsy snakes. We
asked in wonder, "Who are you?"
He answered not but sat by the
garrulous stream and silently gazed at
the hut where she dwelt. Our hearts
quaked in fear and we came back home
when it was night.
Next morning when the women
came to fetch water at the spring by
the deodar trees, they found the doors
open in her hut, but her voice was gone
and where was her smiling face?
The empty jar lay on the floor and her
lamp had burnt itself out in the
corner. No one knew where she had
fled to before it was morning--and the
stranger had gone.
In the month of May the sun grew
strong and the snow melted, and we
sat by the spring and wept. We
wondered in our mind, "Is there a
spring in the land where she has gone
and where she can fill her vessel in
these hot thirsty days?" And we
asked each other in dismay, "Is there
a land beyond these hills where we
live?"
It was a summer night; the breeze
blew from the south; and I sat in her
deserted room where the lamp stood
still unlit. When suddenly from
before my eyes the hills vanished like
curtains drawn aside. "Ah, it is
she who comes. How are you, my
child? Are you happy? But where
can you shelter under this open sky?
And, alas! our spring is not here to
allay your thirst."
"Here is the same sky," she said,
"only free from the fencing hills,--
this is the same stream grown into a
river,--the same earth widened into
a plain." "Everything is here," I
sighed, "only we are not." She
smiled sadly and said, "You are in
my heart." I woke up and heard the
babbling of the stream and the rustling
of the deodars at night.

poem by Rabindranath Tagore
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If this is "fading"

120

If this is "fading"
Oh let me immediately "fade"!
If this is "dying"
Bury me, in such a shroud of red!
If this is "sleep,"
On such a night
How proud to shut the eye!
Good Evening, gentle Fellow men!
Peacock presumes to die!

poem by Emily Dickinson
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A Meeting With Despair

AS evening shaped I found me on a moor
Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one
Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun--
Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,
"There's solace everywhere!"

Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood
I dealt me silently
As one perverse--misrepresenting Good
In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon's dim-descernèd wheel
A form rose, strange of mould:
That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel
Rather than could behold.

"'Tis a dead spot, where even the light lies spent
To darkness!" croaked the Thing.
"Not if you look aloft!" said I, intent
On my new reasoning.

"Yea--but await awhile!" he cried. "Ho-ho!--
Look now aloft and see!"
I looked. There, too, sat night: Heaven's radiant show
Had gone. Then chuckled he.

poem by Thomas Hardy
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In Alexandria, 31 B.C.

From his village near the outskirts of town,
still dust-covered from the journey in,
the peddler arrives. And "Incense!" "Gum!"
"The best olive oil!" "Perfume for your hair!"
he hawks through the streets. But with all the hubbub,
the music, the parades, who can hear him?
The crowd shoves him, drags him along, knocks him around.
And when he asks, now totally confused, "What's going on here?"
someone tosses him too the huge palace lie:
that Antony is winning in Greece.

poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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