Po Chü-yi
And the eunuchs thin-eyebrowed in her Court of Pepper-Trees;Over the throne flew fire-flies, while he brooded in the twilight.He would lengthen the lamp-wick to its end and still could never sleep.Bell and drum would slowly toll the dragging night-hoursAnd the River of Stars grow sharp in the sky, just before dawn,And the porcelain mandarin-ducks on the roof grow thick with morning frostAnd his covers of kingfisher-blue feel lonelier and colderWith the distance between life and death year after year;And yet no beloved spirit ever visited his dreams.. . . At Lingch'ün lived a Taoist priest who was a guest of heaven,Able to summon spirits by his concentrated mind.And people were so moved by the Emperor's constant broodingThat they besought the Taoist priest to see if he could find her.He opened his way in space and clove the ether like lightning,Up to heaven, under the earth, looking everywhere.Above, he searched the Green Void, below, the Yellow Spring;But he failed, in either place, to find the one he looked for.And then he heard accounts of an enchanted isle at sea,A part of the intangible and incorporeal world,With pavilions and fine towers in the five-coloured air,And of exquisite immortals moving to and fro,And of one among them—whom they called The Ever True—With a face of snow and flowers resembling hers he sought.So he went to the West Hall's gate of gold and knocked at the jasper doorAnd asked a girl, called Morsel-of-Jade, to tell The Doubly-Perfect.
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