The Jade Mountain
STAYING AT THE GENERAL'S HEADQUARTERS
The autumn night is clear and cold in the lakka-trees of this courtyard.I am lying forlorn in the river-town. I watch my guttering candle.I hear the lonely notes of a bugle sounding through the dark.The moon is in mid-heaven, but there's no one to share it with me.My messengers are scattered by whirls of rain and sand.;City-gates are closed to a traveller; mountains are walls in my way—Yet, I who have borne ten years of pitiable existence,Find here a perch, a little branch, and am safe for this one night.
NIGHT IN THE WATCH-TOWER
While winter daylight shortens in the elemental scaleAnd snow and frost whiten the cold-circling night,Stark sounds the fifth-watch with a challenge of drum and bugle.. . . The stars and the River of Heaven pulse over the three mountains;I hear women in the distance, wailing after the battle;I see barbarian fishermen and woodcutters in the dawn.. . . Sleeping-Dragon, Plunging-Horse, are no generals now, they are dust—Hush for a moment, O tumult of the world.
(84, 49d)
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