English

While an official, I never wrote lyrics:
I was too busy dashing off to court all the time.
When I retired, it's not that I didn't want to,
but I could hardly sit up straight, I was so sick.
Now autumn is here, and I am stronger;
guests visit me for evening parties.
But who will sing these new works of mine?
I must trouble the women maestros!

All my friends can write them,
but as for me, what do I know?
Still, I've had the chairmanship thrust upon me;
I'm ashamed of my inadequacy for this post!
There are many sad songs, like Tree of Jade,
and slangy tunes, like Bamboo Branch.
We improvise songs in northern and southern style,
and give them to the singers right here on the mats!

The Sage has the Six Classics
just as Heaven and Earth have sun and moon.
Sun and moon have lasted millions of years
and the Classics too will never disappear.

Forty li through Chü-yung Pass,
twisting ridges, doubled peaks: we wind in and out.
Beside the road, stone-cut inscriptions no one can read:
all of them are from the former dynasty,
written in Mongolian!

How, my dear Mary, — are you critic-bitten
(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,
That you condemn these verses I have written,
Because they tell no story, false or true?
What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,
May it not leap and play as grown cats do,
Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,
Content thee with a visionary rhyme.

II

What hand would crush the silken-winged fly,

PART III

A swoon that breaks is the whelming wave
When help comes late but still can save.
With all blind throes is the instant rife, —
Hurtling clangour and clouds at strife, —
The breath of death, but the kiss of life.

The night lay deep on Rose Mary's heart,
For her swoon was death's kind counterpart:
The dawn broke dim on Rose Mary's soul, —
No hill-crown's heavenly aureole,
But a wild gleam on a shaken shoal.

Her senses gasped in the sudden air,

PART II

" Pale Rose Mary, what shall be done
With a rose that Mary weeps upon?"
" Mother, let it fall from the tree,
And never walk where the strewn leaves be
Till winds have passed and the path is free."

" Sad Rose Mary, what shall be done
With a cankered flower beneath the sun?"
" Mother, let it wait for the night;
Be sure its shame shall be out of sight
Ere the moon pale or the east grow light."

" Lost Rose Mary, what shall be done

PART I

" Mary mine that art Mary's Rose,
Come in to me from the garden-close.
The sun sinks fast with the rising dew,
And we marked not how the faint moon grew;
But the hidden stars are calling you.

" Tall Rose Mary, come to my side,
And read the stars if you'd be a bride.
In hours whose need was not your own,
While you were a young maid yet ungrown,
You've read the stars in the Beryl-stone.

" Daughter, once more I bid you read;
But now let it be for your own need:

G R eat Grandame Wales from whom those Ancestors
Descended, from whom I (poore I) descend,
I owe so much to my Progenitors ,
And to thee, for them that vntill mine end
Thy name , and fame , Ile honor and defend:
Sith Ioy doth passage to thy speech deny
(For that thy Prince thine honor doth commend)
Lest that thy silence might be tane awrie,
Mine Artlesse Pen shall thy Tongue's want supply.

Did Curtius more for Rome , then I for thee,
That willingly (to saue thee from annoy
Of dire dislike , for ingratuitee )

Banners from East, from South.
She hugged him in them, feared the scourge they meant,
Yet blindly hugged, and hungering built his throne.
So may you see the village innocent,
With curtsey of shut lids and open mouth.
In act to beg for sweets expect a loathly stone:
See furthermore the Just in his measures weigh
Her sufferings and her sins, dispense her meed.
False to her bridegroom lord of the miracle day,
She fell: from his ethereal home observed
Through love, grown alien love, not moved to plead