English

1

To sing of wars, of captains, and of kings,
Of cities founded, commonwealths begun,
For my mean pen are too superior things:
Or how they all, or each their dates have run
Let poets and historians set these forth,
My obscure lines shall not so dim their worth.

2

But when my wond'ring eyes and envious heart
Great Bartas' sugared lines do but read o'er,
Fool I do grudge the Muses did not part
'Twixt him and me that overfluent store;
A Bartas can do what a Bartas will

I itched inside and caught my lover's eye,
But once he came to me he wouldn't leave me alone.
From the prow down to the cabin, the deck began to burn;
Luckily my lover put out the fire in my stern.

Mom is smart,
But her daughter's smart too.
Mom sifted ashes all across the floor,
But I rashly carried my lover into bed and out again,
The two of us sharing a single pair of shoes.

Last night I spent beside my lover
While Mom slept by my feet.
I said, " Lover, when boating on the Yangtze, to get rice from the pot,
Lightly, lightly slip the scoop in.
The iron shovel's rough and bulky,
So slowly, slowly, draw it out. "

People laugh at me for having no old lady.
But they don't know that " when you scrub rice in a busted sieve, you get a lot outside. "
Just like a wild mountain cock that spends the night along the road,
The old bird without a nook always manages to squeeze in somewhere.

1

My old man's small, shriveled and shrunk;
When a crummy horse has no bridle, who enjoys the ride?
The river swells, the boat rides high,
Too bad his pole is short.
How will he ever touch bottom?
2

My old man's small and unromantic;
We share the same bedcurtains but not the same pillow.
I joined to your household a fine patch of land;
Too bad you don't know how to plant it.
Every year the harvest of its flowers will be reaped by others.

Night so
long. Can't get
to sleep. Bright
moon blazes into bloom.

In thought, I hear
a call from a windblown
voice. And to the empty
sky, make hollow answer,
yes .

130 Saturday, 2 February 1754

Qui non est hodie, cras minus aptus erit.
Mart. [In fact , Ovid, Rem. Amor. 94]

The man will surely fail who dares delay,
And lose to-morrow that has lost to-day.

85 Tuesday, 8 January 1751

Otia si tollas periere Cupidinis arcus
Contemptaeque jacent, et sine luce faces
Ovid [Remed. Amor. 139 40]

At busy hearts in vain love's arrows fly;
Dim, scorn'd, and impotent, his torches lie.

21 Tuesday, 29 May 1750

Terra salutiferas herbas, eademque nocentes,
Nutrit; et urticae proxima saepe rosa est.
Ovid [Rem. Amor. 45]

Our bane and physic the same earth bestows,
And near the noisome nettle blooms the rose.