Autumn Air
The autumn air is clear,
The autumn moon is bright.
Fallen leaves gather and scatter,
The jackdaw perches and starts anew.
We think of each other- when will we meet?
This hour, this night, my feelings are hard.
Song of the Forge
The forge-fire sets a glow in the heavens,
the hammer thunders, showering the smoke with sparks.
A ruddy smithy, the white face of the moon,
and the hammer, ringing down cold dark canyons.
Li T'ai-po
tr. Hamil
Green Mountain
You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain;
I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care.
As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown,
I have a world apart that is not among men.
Spring Night in Lo-yang Hearing a Flute
In what house, the jade flute that sends these dark notes drifting,
scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-yang?
Tonight if we should hear the willow-breaking song,
who could help but long for the gardens of home?
poem by Li Po, translated by Burton Watson
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Viewing Heaven's Gate Mountains
The River Chu cuts through the middle of heaven's gate,
The green water flowing east reaches here then swirls.
On either bank the blue hills face towards each other,
The flatness of a lonely sail comes from by of the sun.
Hearing A Flute On A Spring Night In Luoyang
From whose home secretly flies the sound of a jade flute?
It's lost amid the spring wind which fills Luoyang city.
In the middle of this nocturne I remember the snapped willow,
What person would not start to think of home!
Under the Moon
Under the crescent moon's faint glow
The washerman's bat resounds afar,
And the autumn breeze sighs tenderly.
But my heart has gone to the Tartar war,
To bleak Kansuh and the steppes of snow,
Calling my husband back to me.
Drinking With Someone In The Mountains
As the two of us drink
together, while mountain
flowers blossom beside, we
down one cup after the other
until I am drunk and sleepy
so that you better go!
Tomorrow if you feel like it
do come and bring your lute
along with you!
Farewell to Meng Hao-jan
I took leave of you, old friend, at the
Yellow Crane Pavilion;
In the mist and bloom of March, you went
down to Yang-chou:
A lonely sail, distant shades, extinguished by blue--
There, at the horizon, where river meets sky.
Ho Chih-chang
When we met the first time at Ch’ang-an
He called me the ‘Lost Immortal’.
Then he loved the Way of Forgetting.
Now under the pine-trees he is dust.
His golden keepsake bought us wine.
Remembering, the tears run down my cheeks.