English Rendering
The wine, the song, life goes on —
But for how long?
It evaporates, to our dismay,
Like the morning dew, day after day.
Ambition and aspiration sustain me,
But a secret thread of grief worries me.
How can I brush it aside
But by drowning it in wine?
Scholars, scholars, where are you?
Years I have chanted the song of yearning —
But would you ever come over to me?
Deer are calling from the field, grazing
On the tender marsilea.
Let my house be graced with a learned visitor,
I will have music played in his honour.
But he is as bright as the moon,
And how could I make a moon stay?
Here my sorrows surface and swell,
And refuse to go away.
Talented friends, whom I love, I treasure,
For a rendezvous no journey is too long!
Would you mind coming, to our meeting,
To our feast, back to old-days' feeling?
The stars so dim, the moon so bright,
Southbound birds are flying, circling
Round and round over the tree —
On which bough are you alight?
The water can never be too deep,
And the mountain too high.
When an open-minded king calls for talent,
It is him the would must stand by.
