From whose home secretly flies the sound of a jade flute?
It's lost amid the spring wind which fills Luoyang city.
In the middle of this nocturne I remember the snapped willow,
What person would not start to think of home!
The charm of labour is health's appetite,
For lack of which the clammy sinew is
A joyless power, and, like a hopeless heart,
Throbs to a sickly tune.
''Healfast, healfast, ye hero wounds;
O knight, be quickly strong!
Beloved strife
For fame and life,
Oh, tarry not too long!''
Oh, when I flung my heart away,
The year was at its fall.
I saw my dear, the other day,
Beside a flowering wall;
And this was all I had to say:
"I thought that he was tall!"
He, who was here, is also there;
He's in possession of house everywhere
He's the Pedestrian, and He the Ruath, (old type of vehicle)
He's all in all; invincible and obscure!
He who wields the sword a kingdom gains;
Paradise is gained by penance and alms.
Follow the Guru's word and gain
True knowledge of the Self within.
Of his own virtue and his sin
Man himself surely reaps the fruits.
He who hath glory lost, nor hath
Found any soul to fellow his,
Among his foes in scorn and wrath
Holding to ancient nobleness,
That high unconsortable one ---
His love is his companion.
Every so often he vows to start a better life.
But when night comes with her own counsels,
with her compromises, and with her promises;
but when night comes with her own power
of the body that wants and demands, he returns,
forlorn, to the same fatal joy.
Man may escape from rope and gun;
Nay, some have out-liv'd the doctor's pill;
Who takes a woman must be undone,
That basilisk is sure to kill.
The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets,
So he that tastes woman, woman, woman,
He that tastes woman, ruin meets.
Give up imagining that the skill of killing desire,
and meditating on the Self are too costly to buy;
He stands close by you! Do not look for Him far away.
The void was dissolved in the Void!
