Winter 's back wi' snaw an' sleet
Tho' lilac braks the bud.
Unco roads an' a'thing weet—
Winter 's back wi' snaw an' sleet
Mend the fire wi' guid black peat—
Soakin' claes an' clorts o' mud;
Winter 's back wi' snaw and sleet
Tho' lilac braks the bud.

Her tears are spent, but no dreams come.
She can hear the others singing through the night.
She has lost his love. Alone with her beauty,
She leans till dawn on her incense-pillow.

Who was the far-off founder of the house,
With its red gates abutting to the road?—
A palace, though its outer wings are shorn,
And domes of glittering tiles. The wall without
Has tottered into ruin, yet remain
The straggling fragments of some seven courts,
The wreck of seven fortunes: roof and eaves
Still hang together. From this chamber cool
The dense blue smoke arose. Nor heat nor cold
Now dwells therein. A tall pavilion stands
Empty beside the empty rooms that face
The pine-browed southern hills. Long purple vines
Frame the verandahs.

Into the night the sounds of luting flow;
The west wind stirs amid the root-crop blue;
While envious fireflies spoil the twinkling dew,
And early wild-geese stem the dark Kin-ho.

Now great trees tell their secrets to the sky,
And hill on hill looms in the moon-clear night,
I watch one leaf upon the river light,
And in a dream go drifting down the Hwai.

Ten years a traveler,
ever plagued by hunger and chill;
three years an admonisher at court,
so often ashamed to be drawing pay unearned.
There was wine, but no leisure to drink it,
mountains, but I never got to stroll them.
Always hoping to retire,
but, yanked and pulled about, what freedom did I have?
Then one morning I came home to the Wei,
bobbing like an unmoored boat,
mind fixed on other than worldly concerns,
not joyful, not downcast either.
Every day the same sort of vegetable fare,
all year one cloth-lined jacket,

Each year in Chao Village pink apricots bloom—
fifteen years now, how many times have I seen them?
But at seventy-three it's hard to count on another visit.
I've come this spring to say good-bye to the blossoms.

Tis a time for much rejoicing;
Let each heart be lured away;
Let each tongue, its thanks be voicing
For Emancipation Day.
Day of victory, day of glory,
For thee, many a field was gory!

Many a time in days now ended,
Hath our fathers' courage failed,
Patiently their tears they blended;
Ne'er they to their, Maker, railed;
Well we know their groans, He numbered,
When dominions fell, asundered.

As of old the Red Sea parted,
And oppressed passed safely through,
Back from North, the bold South, started,
And a fissure wide she drew;

Last night my girdle came undone,
And this morning a luck-beetle flew over my bed.
So here are my paints and here are my powders—
And a welcome for my yoke again.

Never think you fortune can bear the sway
Where virtue's force can cause her to obey.

Grant me, Rama, to see Thee, see Thee: grant me to see, make no delay.
Life of my life it is to see Thee: can the chakor live except he see Thee?

Sadhus, of the Sat Guru all the world is chela: if parted now, how hope to meet Him?
Tis vain to trust on wealth and beauty—the truth, the truth proclaims Rai Das.