The Jade Mountain
My own flesh and blood become scum of the street,I moan to my shadow like a lone-wandering wildgoose,I am torn from my root like a water-plant in autumn:I gaze at the moon, and my tears run downFor hearts, in five places, all sick with one wish.
(69)
A SONG OF UNENDING SORROW
China's Emperor, craving beauty that might shake an empire,Was on the throne for many years, searching, never finding,Till a little child of the Yang clan, hardly even grown,Bred in an inner chamber, with no one knowing her,But with graces granted by heaven and not to be concealed,At last one day was chosen for the imperial household.If she but turned her head and smiled, there were cast a hundred spells,And the powder and paint of the Six Palaces faded into nothing.. . . It was early spring. They bathed her in the Flower-Pure Pool,Which warmed and smoothed the creamy-tinted crystal of her skin,And, because of her languor, a maid was lifting herWhen first the Emperor noticed her and chose her for his bride.The cloud of her hair, petal of her cheek, gold ripples of her crown when she moved,Were sheltered on spring evenings by warm hibiscus-curtains;But nights of spring were short and the sun arose too soon,And the Emperor, from that time forth, forsook his early hearings
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