A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems/Dreaming of Yüan Chēn

by Arthur Waley

DREAMING OF YÜAN CHĒN

This was written eight years after Yüan Chēn's deaths 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^[1] has passed through sickness;
At Hsien-yang^[2] 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^[3] both followed in their turn;
Among the shadows of the Terrace of Night did you know them or not?

 

1. Since you died.
2. Near Ch'ang-an, modern Si-ngan-fu.
3. Affectionate names of Li Chien and Ts'ui Hsüan-liang.