A Short-Song Ballad
- Poetry of Cao Cao

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.