Ma Dai

A cold light shines on the gathering dew,

As sunset fades beyond the southern mountains;

Trees echo with monkeys on the banks of Lake Dongting,

Where somebody is moving in an orchid-wood boat.

Marsh-lands are swollen wide with the moon,

While torrents are bent to the mountains' will;

And the vanished Queens of the Clouds leave me

Sad with autumn all night long.

Leaning on the battlement, I gaze afar,

A homesick sorrow rises dark and deep.

Frost lies white on reed flowers bare,

Hills fade in mist where night dews weep.

Wild geese descend on sandy bars,

War drums boom from Tartar posts—startling the air.

A lone tree stands in autumn’s scars;

I sing mad songs, my tears stain the tassels there.

Thatched with reeds and fenced with thorns, the temple stands,

Its steps in tiers of stone by rugged hands.

East valley’s laughter wakes west valley’s sound,

While clouds weep below, the peaks are sunlight-crowned.

Mice scurry from woodmen along moss-dark walls,

Apes swing on summits, shaking purple pines tall.

Yet one lone stream down to the ravine is thrown—

Through bamboo pipes, it fills the tea-maker’s own.

After the shower at Bashang,

I see an evening line of wildgeese,

The limp-hanging leaves of a foreign tree,

A lantern's cold gleam, lonely in the night,

An empty garden, white with dew,

The ruined wall of a neighbouring monastery.

...I have taken my ease here long enough.

What am I waiting for, I wonder.