BY CHAO TI OF HAN, THE “BRIGHT EMPEROR”

In Autumn, when the landscape is clear, to float over the wide, water ripples,
To pick the water-chestnut and the lotus-flower with a quick, light hand!
The fresh wind is cool, we start singing to the movement of the oars.
The clouds are bright; they part before the light of dawn; the moon has sunk below the Silver River.
Enjoying such pleasure for ten thousand years—
Could one consider it too much?