At Nine Rivers,[1] in the tenth year,[2] in winter,— heavy snow;
The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their load.[3]
The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went flying east and west;
And with them flew a migrant "yen," loudly clamouring for food.
Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the ice:
It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was slow.
The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew;
They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there alive.
I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here:
Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the south.
And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile's heart,
I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds.
Page:A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919).djvu/215
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RELEASING A MIGRANT "YEN" [WILD-GOOSE]
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