Classic Poem

Lovely lady, fairest of the time,
hiding away in an empty valley;
daughter of a good house, she said,
fallen now among grasses of the wood
“There was tumult and death within the passes then;
my brothers, old and young, were killed.
Office, position—what help were they?
I couldn't even gather up my brothers' bones!
The world despises you when your luck is down;
all I had went with the turn of the flame.
My husband was a fickle fellow,
his new girl as fair as jade.
Blossoms that close at dusk keep faith with the hour,
mandarin ducks will not rest apart;
but he could only see the new one laughing,
never hear the former one's tears—”
Within the mountain the stream runs clear;
out of the mountain it turns to mud.
Her maid returns from selling a pearl,
braids vines to mend their roof of thatch
The lady picks a flower but does not put it in her hair,
gathers juniper berries, sometimes a handful
When the sky is cold, in thin azure sleeves,
at dusk she stands leaning by the tall bamboo.