Beloved, let us once more praise the rain. Let us discover some new alphabet, For this, the often praised; and be ourselves, The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,...
It is moonlight. Alone in the silence I ascend my stairs once more, While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, Crash on a white sand shore. It is moonlight. The garden is silent....
It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning When the light drips through the shutters like the dew, I arise, I face the sunrise, And do the things my fathers learned to do....
Moonlight silvers the tops of trees, Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall And through the evening fall, Clearly, as if through enchanted seas, Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away,...
Senlin sits before us, and we see him. He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him. Is he small, with reddish hair, Does he light his pipe with meditative stare, And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes?...
Senlin, walking beside us, swings his arms And turns his head to look at walls and trees. The wind comes whistling from shrill stars of winter, The lights are jewels, black roots freeze....
It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening, By a silent shore, by a far distant sea, White unicorns come gravely down to the water. In the lilac dusk they come, they are white and stately,...
Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight, Bending his small legs in a peculiar way, Goes to his work with thoughts of the universe. His hands are in his pockets, he smokes his pipe,...
In the hot noon, in an old and savage garden, The peach-tree grows. Its cruel and ugly roots Rend and rifle the silent earth for moisture. Above, in the blue, hang warm and golden fruits....
Rustling among his odds and ends of knowledge Suddenly, to his wonder, Senlin finds How Cleopatra and Senebtisi Were dug by many hands from ancient tombs. Cloth after scented cloth the sage unwinds:...
'And am I then a pyramid?' says Senlin, 'In which are caves and coffins, where lies hidden Some old and mocking hieroglyph of flesh? Or am I rather the moonlight, spreading subtly...
In cold blue lucid dusk before the sunrise, One yellow star sings over a peak of snow, And melts and vanishes in a light like roses. Through slanting mist, black rocks appear and glow....
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light. The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east: And lights wink out through the windows, one by one. A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night....
One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls:...
One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand, With wave upon slowly shattering wave, Turned to the city of towers as evening fell; And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it;...
Up high black walls, up sombre terraces, Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs, The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky. From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,...
The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain . . . It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls Down golden-windowed walls. We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain,...
Over the darkened city, the city of towers, The city of a thousand gates, Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers, Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,...
Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers The golden lights go out . . . The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn, In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn,...
The white fog creeps from the cold sea over the city, Over the pale grey tumbled towers, And settles among the roofs, the pale grey walls. Along damp sinuous streets it crawls,...