Classic Poem

BY LI T'AI-PO

The East wind has come again.
I see the jade-green grass and realize that it is Spring.
Everywhere there is an immense confusion of ripples and agitations.
Why does the waving and fluttering of the weeping-willow make me sad?
The sky is so bright it shines; everything is lovely and at peace.
The breath of the sea is green, fresh, sweet-smelling;
The heaths are vari-coloured, blue — green — as a kingfisher feather. Oh-h-h-h-h — How far one can see!
Clouds whirl, fly, float, and cluster together, each one sharply defined;
Waves are smoothed into a wide continuous flowing.
I examine the young moss in the well, how it starts into life.
I see something dim — Oh-h-h-h-h — waving up and down like floss silk.
I see it floating — it is a cobweb, coiling like smoke.
Before all these things — Oh-h-h-h-h — my soul is severed from my body.
Confronted with the wind, the brilliance, I suffer.
I feel as one feels listening to the sound of the waters of the Dragon Mound in Ch'in,
The gibbons wailing by the Serpent River.
I feel as the " Shining One " felt when she passed the Jade Frontier,
As the exile of Ch'u in the Maple Forest.
I will try to climb a high hill and look far away into the distance.
Pain cuts me to the bone and wounds my heart.
My Spring heart is agitated as the surface of the sea,
My Spring grief is bewildered like a flurry of snow.
Ten thousand emotions are mingled — their sorrow and their joy.
Yet I know only that my heart is torn in this Spring season.
She of whom I am thinking — Oh-h-h-h-h — is at the shore of the Hsiang River,
Separated by the clouds and the rainbow — without these mists I could surely see.
I scatter my tears a foot's length upon the water's surface.
I entrust the Easterly flowing water with my passion for the Cherished One.
If I could command the shining of the Spring, could grasp it without putting it out — Oh-h-h-h-h —
I should wish to send it as a gift to that beautiful person at the border of Heaven.