  BY LI T'AI-PO (The Woman Speaks) The colour of the day is over; flowers hold the mist in their lips. The bright moon is like glistening silk. I cannot sleep for grief. The tones of the Chao psaltery begin and end on the bridge of the silver-crested love-pheasant. I wish I could play my Shu table-lute on the mandarin duck strings. The meaning of this music—there is no one to receive it. I desire my thoughts to follow the Spring wind, even to the Swallow Mountains. I think of my Lord far, far away, remote as the Green Heaven. In old days, my eyes were like horizontal waves; Now they flow, a spring of tears. If you do not believe that the bowels of your Unworthy One are torn and severed, Return and take up the bright mirror I was wont to use. (The Man Speaks) We think of each other eternally. My thoughts are at Ch'ang An. The Autumn cricket chirps beside the railing of the Golden Well; The light frost is chilly, chilly; the colour of the bamboo sleeping mat is cold. The neglected lamp does not burn brightly. My thoughts seem broken off. I roll up the long curtain and look at the moon—it is useless, I sigh continually. The Beautiful, Flower-like One is as far from me as the distance of the clouds. Above is the brilliant darkness of a high sky, Below is the rippling surface of the clear water. Heaven is far and the road to it is long; it is difficult for a man's soul to compass it in flight. Even in a dream my spirit cannot cross the grievous barrier of hills. We think of each other eternally. My heart and my liver are snapped in two. |
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