On the way to Baling

West from Lake Dongting is the Young Maid's Shrine,
Where painted eyebrows come to comfort the traveler.
This mountain district is deserted, and shops close early;
Watchtower lamps seem distant, as my boat moors late.
I don't understand the dialect and yearn for a translator;
Strange birds without names shame my skill as a poet.
Still it's wonderful how the boatmen understand my desires -
Each time I open the window, we face a branch full of flowers!

poem by Yuan Mei, translated by J.D. Schmidt
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Miscellaneous Feelings in the Sui Garden

1
Joy and anger are not caused by outside things:
they simply happen to arise in the heart.
Rising and falling are not matters of fate:
one simply happens to encounter them.
Reading a book and finding nothing there,
I drop the volume, get up, and take a walk.
I think I'll go to the bamboo grove
where I can listen to the springtime water flow.

2
Let them knock at the bramble gate —
the host is in a dream!
Startled awake, I search for my socks;
I must have lost them east of the thatched hut.
At night, with nothing on my mind,
in dream I watched the bamboo growing tall.
Should guests arrive now at my garden,
barefoot I will see them off.

[...] Read more

poem by Yuan Mei, translated by Jonathan Chaves
Added by Dan Costinaş
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian