Poems

Ballad of the Old Cypress In front of the temple of Chu-ko Liang there is an old cypress. Its branches are like green bronze; its roots […]

By the Lake The old fellow from Shao-ling weeps with stifled sobs as he walks furtively by the bends of the Sepentine on a day in […]

Day’s End Oxen and sheep were brought back down Long ago, and bramble gates closed. Over Mountains and rivers, far from my old garden, A windswept […]

Dreaming of Li Po After the separation of death one can eventually swallow back one’s grief, but the separation of the living is an endless, unappeasable […]

Full Moon Above the tower — a lone, twice-sized moon. On the cold river passing night-filled homes, It scatters restless gold across the waves. On mats, […]

Gazing at the Sacred Peak For all this, what is the mountain god like? An unending green of lands north and south: From ethereal beauty Creation […]

Moonlit Night Tonight at Fu-chou, this moon she watches Alone in our room. And my little, far-off Children, too young to understand what keeps me Away, […]

Morning Rain A slight rain comes, bathed in dawn light. I hear it among treetop leaves before mist Arrives. Soon it sprinkles the soil and, Windblown, […]

On a Prospect of T’ai-shan How is one to describe this king of mountains? Throught the whole of Ch’i and Lu one never loses sight of […]

On Seeing a Pupil of Kung-sun Dance the Chien-ch`i On the nineteenth day of the tenth month of the second year of Ta-li ( November 767), […]