The morning hoar-frost, and Mount Fuji
Drawn on it with my walking-stick.

With my wine-bottle, watching by river and lake
For a lady so tiny as to dance on my palm,
I awake, after dreaming ten years in Yang-chou,
Known as fickle, even in the Street of Blue Houses.

Those fireflies sparkling in the willows,
Here, there, here, there;
Those frogs piping in the moonlit pond,
Tweedle, tweedle, tweedle —
There seems to be a persistent method in it.
What is the code?
Is Nature trying to get across some message to me?

There, by the crescent moon, the shark
Has hid his head [beneath the wave].

Life is a game of whist
Between Man and Nature
In which Nature knows all Man's cards.
Well, suppose I try you out on trumps,
Says Nature,
Leading the mating instinct.

He was the cuckoo. Say what other
Bird may sing now he is gone.

Mist veils the cold stream, and moonlight the sand,
As I moor in the shadow of a river-tavern,
Where girls, with no thought of a perished kingdom,
Gaily echo A Song of Courtyard Flowers .

How carefully begin to bud
In winter the camellia-trees!

Sitting in this tea-house,
Looking out on the clear cool water
And the silver lilies,
How I wish I could press a dripping lily-pad
On my burning bosom
To ease me of my smart.
A broken heart, you ask, Mar Quong?
No, no, a mustard plaster.

My theology, briefly,
Is that the Universe
Was Dictated
But not Signed.