From “Nineteen Ancient Poems”
By Unknown
Translated By Jeffrey Yang
13
Horse cart skirrs through the Upper East Gate
to the north beyond the city walls gaze
at the graves White poplars rustle xiao
xiao pine cypress line the wide road
Dead arranged under the trees ceremony
darkening darkening the long twilight
Hidden sleep beneath the Yellow Springs
on and on for ten centuries to never wake
Horse cart skirrs through the Upper East Gate
to the north beyond the city walls gaze
at the graves White poplars rustle xiao
xiao pine cypress line the wide road
Dead arranged under the trees ceremony
darkening darkening the long twilight
Hidden sleep beneath the Yellow Springs
on and on for ten centuries to never wake
Wave after wave endless yin-yang changes
allotted years like morning dew
Our life is like a brief visitation can’t
approach the longevity of metal stone
Ten thousand ages of partings and farewells
the virtuous the sages no one lasts
Take elixirs to seek divine immortality so
many harmed by messed up concoctions
Nothing like drinking good spirits while
dressed up in diaphanous silk clothes
18
A visitor arrives from a faraway place
gives me a bolt of fine qi-silk Ten
thousand li apart this broken wife’s
heart still yours Exquisite colors
of a mandarin duck pair cut and sew
into a Harmony-Joy quilt Bind it
with long-lasting cords hem it with
stitches that can never be undone
When resin is blended into lacquer who
could separate the one from the other
Translated from the Han dynasty Chinese (c. 206 BCE–220 CE), below
____13
驅車上東門
遙望郭北墓
白楊何蕭蕭
松柏夾廣路
下有陳死人
杳杳即長暮
潛寐黃泉下
千載永不寤
浩浩陰陽移
年命如朝露
人生忽如寄
壽無金石固
18
客從遠方來
遺我一端綺
相去萬餘里
故人心尚爾
文采雙鴛鴦
裁為合歡被
著以長相思
緣以結不解
以膠投漆中
誰能別離此
Notes:
For the original text see Luo Hongkai 駱鴻凱. Wen Xuan Xue 文宣學, 1937, reprint. Taipei: Zhonghua Shuju, 1963.
Read the note on this poem by Jeffrey Yang.
Source: Poetry (May 2022)