If Might made Right, life were a wild-beasts' cage;
If Right made Might, this were the golden age;
But now, until we win the long campaign,
Right must gain Might to conquer and to reign.

Mig Gamle spørger Du Unge,
Hvad Skjæbne Dig forestaaer.
'Pyt', sagde Peer til Kongen!
Ja det er det Svar, Du faaer.

In Chang'an city is the disk of the moon,
The sound of pounding clothes in ten thousand households.
The autumn wind is blowing without cease,
All the time I think of Yuguan pass.
When will we pacify the pillaging Hu,
So my husband can end his long journey?

Cut if you will, with Sleep's dull knife,
Each day to half its length, my friend,—
The years that Time take off my life,
He'll take from off the other end!

It's midnight, the house silent,
in the distance a musical instrument
being played softly. I am alone.
It's as if the world has come to an end
on a low musical note

Midfield,
attached to nothing,
the skylark singing.


Translated by Robert Hass

Like black ice
Scrolled over with unintelligible patterns
by an ignorant skater
Is the dulled surface of my heart.

ROSE-SHEATHED beside the rosebud tongue
Lurks the young adder's tooth;
Milk-mild from new-born hemlock-bluth
The earliest drops are wrung:
And sweet the flower of his first youth
When Michael Scott was young.

Little cullud Rastus come a-skippin’ down de street,
A-smilin’ and a-grinnin’ at every one he meet;
My, oh! He was happy! Boy, but was he gay!
Wishin’ 'Merry Chris’mus' an’ 'Happy New-Year’s Day'!
Wishin’ that his wishes might every one come true—
And—bless your dear heart, honey,—I wish the same to you!

Mercedes hacen los reyes,
Mercedes sueña el amor,
Mas Mercedes como t ú . . .
¡Sólo puede hacerlas Dios!