The Good Book (28 page)

The snowflakes fly.

Our march is long, we thirst, we hunger:

Our hearts are stricken with sorrow:

But no one listens when we cry

‘To go back, to go back!

Our hearts burn with sadness.’

And no news comes from home.

5

I wake, and hasten to the window,

Expecting to see the first green buds of spring;

But find that the rains of autumn have already begun.

When did the years pass,

That I did not notice?

When did spring become autumn,

Whose rain falls at my window,

When I rose with hope to see

The first green buds of spring?

6

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;

I drink alone, for no friend is near.

Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

For he, with my shadow, will make three.

The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;

Listless, my shadow creeps at my side.

Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave

I must make merry before night is spent.

Hearing my songs, the moon flickers her beams;

In the dance I weave, my shadow tangles and breaks.

While we were sober, three shared the fun;

Now we are drunk, each goes his own way.

May we long share our odd midnight feasts,

And meet at last on the cloudy river of the sky.

7

My friend is lodging high in the Eastern Hills,

Loving the beauty of valleys and tree-clad slopes.

In summer he lies in the empty woods,

And is still asleep when the sun pours warmth on them.

A pine-tree wind dusts his sleeves and coat;

A pebbled stream cleans his heart and thoughts.

I envy you, who far from strife and talk

Are high-propped on a pillow of blue cloud.

Here the fields are chill; the sparse rain has stopped;

The colours of nature teem on every side.

With leaping fish the blue pond is full;

With singing thrushes the green boughs droop.

The flowers of the field have powder on their cheeks;

The mountain grasses are bent level at the waist.

By the bamboo stream the last fragments of cloud,

Blown by the wind, scatter slowly away.

8

Do not ask me to sing.

That belongs to better times; the lute

And my voice cannot agree,

And neither of them agree

With my untuned fortunes.

Music is the child of mirth, not grief;

This grief’s too great for songs and smiling eyes.

The raven’s harsh call, the wolf’s cry,

The midnight screech owl,

Blizzard wind or cracking ice:

That is the only music for this,

Or better: silence;

Not music but silence,

Not the sounding string, but solitude.

9

Do you know where the lemon blossoms blow,

Where golden oranges in foliage glow,

Where the breeze falls from an azure sky,

And the myrtle and laurel stand high?

Do you know the mansion with the white wall,

The blackened chimney and the fire-lit hall?

That is the place I would have you know,

The place where, with you, I would now go.

10

At the end of spring

The flower of the pear tree gathers and turns to fruit;

The swallows’ eggs have hatched.

When the seasons’ changes thus confront the mind

What comfort is there in philosophy?

It can teach me to watch the days and months fly

Without grieving that youth slips away;

If the fleeting world is a dream

What does it matter whether one is young or old.

But ever since the day my friend left my side

And has lived in exile in a far city,

There is one wish I cannot quite abandon:

That from time to time we may meet again.

11

In waters still as a burnished mirror’s face,

In the depths of the river, trout and grayling swim.

Idly I come with my bamboo rod

And hang my hook by the stream’s bank.

A soft breeze blows on my fishing gear,

Gently swaying my three yards of line.

Though my body sits waiting for fish to rise,

My heart has wandered to the land of nothingness.

Long ago a white-headed man

Also fished at this same river-side;

A hooker of men, not of fish,

When seventy years old he caught a king.

But when I cast my hook in the stream

I have no thought of fish or men.

Lacking the skill to capture either prey,

I only bask in the autumn water’s light;

When I tire of this, my fishing also stops,

And I turn homeward for a cup of wine.

12

My house is poor; those that I love have left me;

My body is sick; I cannot join the feast.

There is not a single face before my eyes

As I lie alone in my cottage room.

My broken lamp burns with a feeble flame;

My tattered curtains are crooked and do not meet.

On the doorstep and window sill

I hear the new snow fall.

As I grow older, gradually I sleep less;

I wake at midnight and sit up in bed.

If I had not learned the art of sitting and forgetting,

How could I bear this loneliness?

Stiff and stark my body cleaves to earth;

Unimpeded my mind yields to change.

So has it been through the long years,

Through twenty thousand nights!

13

I hug my pillow and do not speak a word;

In my empty room no sound stirs.

Who knows that, all day a-bed,

I am not ill, nor even asleep?

Turned to jade are the rosy cheeks

That long ago I had as a boy;

To my sick temples the winter frost now clings.

Do not wonder that my body sinks to decay;

Though my limbs are old, my heart is older yet.

14

Washed by the rain, dust and grime are laid;

Skirting the river, the road’s course is flat.

The moon has risen on the last remnants of night;

The travellers’ speed profits by the early cold.

In the silence I whisper a song;

Darkness breeds sombre thoughts.

On the lotus-bank hovers a dewy breeze;

Through the rice-furrows trickles a singing stream.

At the noise of our bells a dog stirs from sleep;

At the sight of our torches a roosting bird wakes.

Dawn glimmers through the misty shapes of trees –

For ten miles, till day at last breaks.

15

When the sun rose I was still in bed;

An early oriole sang in the eaves.

I thought of the royal park’s trees at dawn,

From which the spring birds greeted the king,

When I served there in his retinue.

Pencil in hand, on duty in the palace office,

At the height of spring, when I paused from work,

Morning and evening, was this the voice I heard?

Now in my exile the oriole sings again

In the dull stillness of this far town:

The bird’s note cannot be changed,

All the difference lies in the listener’s heart.

If only he could forget that he lives

Exiled at the world’s end,

The oriole would sound the same as when

Its song filled the palace garden.

16

I dreamed that I was back in the city,

I saw again the faces of friends.

And in my dream, under an April sky,

They led me by the hand to wander among spring’s breezes.

Together we came to the village of tranquillity,

We stopped our horses at the gate of friends;

When they saw us coming, smiles lit their faces.

They pointed at the flowers in the western court,

And opened flasks of wine in the summerhouse.

They said none of us had changed,

They regretted that joy will not stay;

That friends meet only for a while,

Then part again with scarcely time for greeting.

I woke, and stretched out my hands to them:

There was nothing there at all.

17

Here among the river gorges there is no lack of men.

They are people one meets, not people one cares for.

At my front door guests arrive:

They are people one sits with, not people one knows.

When I look up through the lattice, there are clouds and trees;

When I look down at the desktop, there are inkwells and depositions.

I eat, sleep, get up, work, sit in the garden to await the breeze;

But everywhere and all day there is an emptiness.

Beyond the city walls lives a hermit; with him I can be at ease,

For he can drink a flagon of wine, and recite

Long-lined poems while the sun sets,

Finding its way down among tangled winter branches.

Some afternoon, when the clerks have gone home,

At a season when the path by the river bank is dry,

I beg you, take up your staff of bamboo wood

And find your way to my door where the plum trees stand.

18

Heat and cold, dusk and dawn have crowded upon one another;

Suddenly it is many years since I arrived here.

Through my closed doors I hear nothing but the morning and evening drum.

From my upper windows I see the ships that come and go,

In vain the starlings tempt me with their song

To stray beneath the flowering trees;

In vain the green rushes lure me to sit by the pond.

There is one thing and one alone I never tire of:

Hearing the stream that trickles over stones

And splashes its way among rocks

In the shade of the dark wood.

19

The papers that lie on my desk are simple and few;

My house by the moat is leisurely and still.

In the autumn rain berries fall from the boughs;

At the evening bell the birds return to the wood.

A broken sunlight quivers over the south porch

Where I lie on my couch in idleness.

20

Men’s hearts love gold and silver;

Men’s mouths covet wine and flesh.

Not so the old man of the stream;

He drinks from his gourd and asks nothing more.

South of the stream he cuts firewood and grass,

North of the stream he has four walls and a roof.

Yearly he sows an acre of land,

In spring he drives two yellow calves.

In these things he finds repose;

Beyond these he has neither wish nor care.

By chance I met him at the water’s side;

He took me home and gave me tea.

He asked my rank and pay; doubting my tale

He laughed loud and long, saying,