Translations from the Chinese/Inscription for a Butterfly's Wing

by Christopher Morley

Layout 4

INSCRIPTION FOR A BUTTERFLY'S WING

THERE are two Languages:
One is of Great Mandarins and Important Affairs,
It is civil, precise, and meaningless.
The other,
The Speech of the Spirit,
So rarely spoken, so dimly understood,
Is haltingly whispered
By lonely men.
In the first I am glib,
In the latter I stammer;
But I know which will serve me
In the Foreign Land.