Yu Qian

I tell those who roam

To make light of cold.

Spring wind will soon come

Eastwards as foretold.

Crack up primeval rock and soil,

There glistening black gold we find;

Preserved in such fine sunny warmth

In Nature's breast deep and kind.

A little fire oft makes one feel

What Spring's expansive breaths incite,

And a burning furnace could break up

The densest darkness of the night.

Bronze tripods and wine-vessels1 're shaped

By its vital power and energy,

And melt iron retains on it

Its posthumous felicity.

So long as all God's children be

Relieved from hunger, free from cold,

It cares not if, from wooded mountains

It comes to vast sufferings untold.

Pounded, chiselled myriad times, deep in the hills I was mined;

Be burned and blazed in raging fire is but nothing, to my mind.

My bones be crushed, body severed, shall brave it all, and more,

To leave behind an impeccable white to remain with humankind.

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa)