No More Learning

The whole poem I read three times;
Each verse ten times I recite.
So precious to me are the fourscore words
That each letter changes into a bar of gold!


REJOICING AT THE ARRIVAL OF CH'? N HSIUNG

(_Circa_ A. D. 812)

When the yellow bird's note was almost stopped;
And half formed the green plum's fruit;
Sitting and grieving that spring things were over,
I rose and entered the Eastern Garden's gate.
I carried my cup and was dully drinking alone:
Suddenly I heard a knocking sound at the door.
Dwelling secluded, I was glad that someone had come;
How much the more, when I saw it was Ch'? n Hsiung!
At ease and leisure,--all day we talked;
Crowding and jostling,--the feelings of many years.
How great a thing is a single cup of wine!
For it makes us tell the story of our whole lives.


GOLDEN BELLS

When I was almost forty
I had a daughter whose name was Golden Bells.
Now it is just a year since she was born;
She is learning to sit and cannot yet talk.
Ashamed,--to find that I have not a sage's heart:
I cannot resist vulgar thoughts and feelings.
Henceforward I am tied to things outside myself:
My only reward,--the pleasure I am getting now.
If I am spared the grief of her dying young,
Then I shall have the trouble of getting her married.
My plan for retiring and going back to the hills
Must now be postponed for fifteen years!


REMEMBERING GOLDEN BELLS

Ruined and ill,--a man of two score;
Pretty and guileless,--a girl of three.
Not a boy,--but, still better than nothing:
To soothe one's feeling,--from time to time a kiss!
There came a day,--they suddenly took her from me;
Her soul's shadow wandered I know not where.
And when I remember how just at the time she died
She lisped strange sounds, beginning to learn to talk,
_Then_ I know that the ties of flesh and blood
Only bind us to a load of grief and sorrow.
At last, by thinking of the time before she was born,
By thought and reason I drove the pain away.
Since my heart forgot her, many days have passed
And three times winter has changed to spring.
This morning, for a little, the old grief came back,
Because, in the road, I met her foster-nurse.


ILLNESS

Sad, sad--lean with long illness;
Monotonous, monotonous--days and nights pass.
The summer trees have clad themselves in shade;
The autumn "lan"[51] already houses the dew.
The eggs that lay in the nest when I took to bed
Have changed into little birds and flown away.
The worm that then lay hidden in its hole
Has hatched into a cricket sitting on the tree.
The Four Seasons go on for ever and ever:
In all Nature nothing stops to rest
Even for a moment. Only the sick man's heart
Deep down still aches as of old!