Li Po: II. Sadness

The east wind has returned. The green of the grass renews and I know that spring is here. Streams unbound awake into the dance of life. Softly the weeping willow waves its long slim boughs. What sorrow is there in its movement! Light of the sky, most fair, most tender blue! Air of the sea, sweet-scented, fresh, green-tinged! Bright colours on the emerald, dreaming off into the distance in a half-seen veil—such was the earth. The little clouds hover lightly in the heights, each melting into the more radiant beyond. Headlong waters are gathered in headlong streams. My glance falls on the moss by the river-bend. How delicate and swift its movements in the wind! Gauze of the wandering threads whirled here and there, my spirit is minded to escape and whirl along with you. O air and light! I am drunk with you! I am dazed—and I am plunged in sorrow. One who has hearkened to the waters roaring down from the heights of Lung, and faint voices from the land of Ch‘in; one who has listened to the cries of monkeys on the shores p. 51 of the Yang-tse-Kiang, and the songs of the land of Pa; that renowned beauty Wang Chao-Chün, who saw before her the last jasper gate of her native land; that renowned Ch‘u poet singing the glories of the tinted maple wood—ah! these knew sorrow. And if I ascend, and, mindful of them, look out

across the blue horizon, I feel the keen pang of grief that, piercing through me, finds my heart. The soul of man swells like a wave at the coming of spring. But there is also the sadness of spring-time, which, like falling snow, distracts us. Both sorrow and joy throbbing and pulsing—a countless crowd of feelings are stirred and mingle together in this festival of perfume. What if I have a friend far away on the shores of the Hsiang! Clouds part us and hide us from each other. Upon a little wave I shed the tears of separation, and—little wave going eastward, take to my friend my soul-felt love. Oh! that I could grasp this golden light of spring, keep it and horde it—a treasure-trove of days for my fairest far-off friend.