Short Poems

Engraven on this burial-stone
Two hands together clasped you view,
A sign of earthly union
That ended soon, tho' deep and true.
They hint to us that parting hour
When hand clasps hand in bitter pain,
How souls are knit with bonds of power,
And how they greet in heaven again!

Flowers, as high as my window, hurt the heart of a wanderer
For I see, from this high vantage, sadness everywhere.
The Silken River, bright with spring, floats between earth and heaven
Like a line of cloud by the Jade Peak, between ancient days and now.
… Though the State is established for a while as firm as the North Star
And bandits dare not venture from the western hills,
Yet sorry in the twilight for the woes of a long-vanished Emperor,
I am singing the song his Premier sang when still unestranged from the mountain.

A single cart to the frontier
Beyond Quyan, past conquered states,
Wandering grass, beyond our borders
Wild geese, in alien skies
Vast desert, lone spire of smoke, stands straight
Long river, the falling sun rolls round
At Desolation Pass, met a patrol.
Headquarters camp, on Swallow Mountain

There was an Old Man of Thames Ditton,
Who called for something to sit on;
But they brought him a hat, and said, “Sit upon that,
You abruptious Old Man of Thames Ditton!”

Terror in the house does roar
But Pity stands before the door

Empty battlefields keep their phantoms.
Grass crawls over old gun wheels
And a nodding Canada thistle flings a purple
Into the summer's southwest wind,
Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet,
Reaching a blossom in rust of shrapnel.

O Beauty, in a beauteous Body dight!
Body! that veiling Brightness becom'st bright/
Fair Cloud which less we see, than by thee see the Light!

Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.

I wish to submit a memorial expressing my feelings:
the feelings are intense, so the language is strong.
I'm afraid the high officials will get angry at something—
here beneath the lamp, I read it through again and again.

Those no longer
at a distance
from each other
suffer all the more,
when every slight,
every pain—
not a thing remains