Tz'u No. 1

Related poetry:

1. Tz'u No. 8 To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” My courtyard is small, windows idle, Spring is getting old. Screens unrolled cast heavy shadows. In my upper-story chamber, speechless, I play on my jasper lute. Clouds rising from distant mountains Hasten the fall of dusk. Gentle wind and drizzling rain Cause a pervading gloom. Pear blossoms can […]...
2. Tz'u No. 13 To the tune of “Song of Peace” Year by year, in the snow, I have often gathered plum flowers, Intoxicated with their beauty. Fondling them impudently I got my robe wet with their lucid tears. This year I have drifted to the corner Of the sea and the edge Of the horizon, My temples have […]...
3. Tz'u No. 15 To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” Thousands of light flakes of crushed gold For its blossoms, Trimmed jade for its layers of leaves. This flower has the air of scholar Yen Fu. How brilliant! Plum flowers are too common; Lilacs too coarse when compared. Yet, its penetrating fragrance Drives away my fond dreams Of […]...
4. Portrait Of A Lady Your thighs are appletrees Whose blossoms touch the sky. Which sky? The sky Where Watteau hung a lady’s Slipper. Your knees Are a southern breeze-or A gust of snow. Agh! what Sort of man was Fragonard? -As if that answered Anything.-Ah, yes. Below The knees, since the tune Drops that way, it is One of […]...
5. Tz'u No. 12 To the tune of “Happy Event Is Nigh” The wind ceases; fallen flowers pile high. Outside my screen, petals collect in heaps of red And snow-white. This reminds me that after the blooming Of the cherry-apple tree It is time to lament the dying spring. Singing and drinking have come to an end; Jade cups […]...
6. When Night Comes To the tune of “Telling My Most Intimate Feelings” When night comes, I am so flushed with wine, I undo my hair slowly: A plum calyx is Stuck on a damaged branch. I wake dazed when smoke Breaks my spring sleep. The dream distant, So very distant; And it is quiet, so very quiet. The […]...
7. Tz'u No. 17 (He Is Gone) To the tune of “Wu Ling Spring” Wind ceased, the dust is scented With the fallen flowers. Though day is getting late, I am too weary To attend to my hair. Things remain as ever, yet he is here no more, And all is finished. Fain would I speak, but tears flow first. They say […]...
8. The Rose and the Cross Out of the seething cauldron of my woes, Where sweets and salt and bitterness I flung; Where charmed music gathered from my tongue, And where I chained strange archipelagoes Of fallen stars; where fiery passion flows A curious bitumen; where among The glowing medley moved the tune unsung Of perfect love: thence grew the Mystic […]...
9. To Autumn O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain’d With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest, And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe, And all the daughters of the year shall dance! Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers. ‘The narrow bud […]...
10. The Double Ninth Festival To the tune of “Intoxicated Under the Shadow of Flowers” Light mists and heavy clouds, Melancholy the long dreary day. In the golden censer The burning incense is dying away. It is again time For the lovely Double-Ninth Festival; The coolness of midnight Penetrates my screen of sheer silk And chills my pillow of jade. […]...
11. Graves I dreamed one man stood against a thousand, One man damned as a wrongheaded fool. One year and another he walked the streets, And a thousand shrugs and hoots Met him in the shoulders and mouths he passed. He died alone. And only the undertaker came to his funeral. Flowers grow over his grave anod […]...
12. THE MUSES' SON [Goethe quotes the beginning of this song in His Autobiography, as expressing the manner in which his poetical Effusions used to pour out from him.] THROUGH field and wood to stray, And pipe my tuneful lay, ‘Tis thus my days are pass’d; And all keep tune with me, And move in harmony, And so on, […]...
13. In The Forest HERE, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead, Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red, Here let us burn them in noon’s flaming torches of fire. We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long […]...
14. Tz'u No. 18 To the tune of “Intoxicated in the Shadow of Flowers” Thin mist, dense clouds, a grief-stricken day; Auspicious incense burns in the gold animal. Once again, it is the joyous mid-autumn festival, But a midnight chill Touches my jade pillow and silk bed-screen. I drink wine by the eastern fence in the yellow dusk. Now […]...
15. The Disputants Upon the table in their bowl In violent disarray Of yellow sprays, green spikes Of leaves, red pointed petals And curled heads of blue And white among the litter Of the forks and crumbs and plates The flowers remain composed. Coolly their colloquy continues Above the coffee and loud talk Grown frail as vaudeville....
16. Putting in the Seed You come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea); And go along with you ere you […]...
17. Celandine Thinking of her had saddened me at first, Until I saw the sun on the celandines lie Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame, A living thing, not what before I nursed, The shadow I was growing to love almost, The phantom, not the creature with bright eye That I had thought never to […]...
18. After an Epigram of Clement Marot The lad I was I longer now Nor am nor shall be evermore. Spring’s lovely blossoms from my brow Have shed their petals on the floor. Thou, Love, hast been my lord, thy shrine Above all gods’ best served by me. Dear Love, could life again be mine How bettered should that service be!...
19. Bitterness Here in February, the fine Dark branches of the almond Begin to sprout tiny clusters Of leaves, sticky to the touch. Not far off, about the length Of my morning shadow, the grass Is littered with the petals Of the plum that less than A week ago blazed, a living Candle in the hand of […]...
20. Blackberry Eating I love to go out in late September Among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries To eat blackberries for breakfast, The stalks very prickly, a penalty They earn for knowing the black art Of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them Lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries Fall almost unbidden to my […]...
21. Parousia Love of my life, you Are lost and I am Young again. A few years pass. The air fills With girlish music; In the front yard The apple tree is Studded with blossoms. I try to win you back, That is the point Of the writing. But you are gone forever, As in Russian novels, […]...
22. The Maiden From Afar Within a vale, each infant year, When earliest larks first carol free, To humble shepherds cloth appear A wondrous maiden, fair to see. Not born within that lowly place From whence she wandered, none could tell; Her parting footsteps left no trace, When once the maiden sighed farewell. And blessed was her presence there Each […]...
23. October The green elm with the one great bough of gold Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white, Harebell and scabious and tormentil, That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun, Bow down to; and the wind travels too light To shake the fallen birch leaves […]...
24. Tz'u No. 9 (Weary) To the tune of “Rinsing Silk Stream” Saddened by the dying spring, I am too weary To rearrange my hair. Plum flowers, newly fallen, drift about the courtyard In the evening wind. The moon looks pale and light clouds float To and fro. Incense lies idle in the jade duck-shaped burner. The cherry-red bed-curtain is […]...
25. Love Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself […]...
26. XVII (I do not love you…) I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself the light […]...
27. Villeggiature My window, framed in pear-tree bloom, White-curtained shone, and softly lighted: So, by the pear-tree, to my room Your ghost last night climbed uninvited. Your solid self, long leagues away, Deep in dull books, had hardly missed me; And yet you found this Romeo’s way, And through the blossom climbed and kissed me. I watched […]...
28. Blossom In April The ponds open Like black blossoms, The moon Swims in every one; There’s fire Everywhere: frogs shouting Their desire, Their satisfaction. What We know: that time Chops at us all like an iron Hoe, that death Is a state of paralysis. What We long for: joy Before death, nights In the swale – […]...
29. Ode To The Lemon From blossoms Released By the moonlight, From an Aroma of exasperated Love, Steeped in fragrance, Yellowness Drifted from the lemon tree, And from its plantarium Lemons descended to the earth. Tender yield! The coasts, The markets glowed With light, with Unrefined gold; We opened Two halves Of a miracle, Congealed acid Trickled From the hemispheres […]...
30. To My Wife – With A Copy Of My Poems I can write no stately proem As a prelude to my lay; From a poet to a poem I would dare to say. For if of these fallen petals One to you seem fair, Love will waft it till it settles On your hair. And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It […]...
31. To Ellen, At The South The green grass is growing, The morning wind is in it, ‘Tis a tune worth the knowing, Though it change every minute. ‘Tis a tune of the spring, Every year plays it over, To the robin on the wing, To the pausing lover. O’er ten thousand thousand acres Goes light the nimble zephyr, The flowers, […]...
32. When they come back if Blossoms do When they come back if Blossoms do I always feel a doubt If Blossoms can be born again When once the Art is out When they begin, if Robins may, I always had a fear I did not tell, it was their last Experiment Last Year, When it is May, if May return, Had nobody […]...
33. What Do I Care? What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring, That my songs do not show me at all? For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire, I am an answer, they are only a call. But what do I care, for love will be over so soon, […]...
34. Tz'u No. 4 To the tune of “Like a Dream” Last night a sprinkling of rain, A violent wind. After a deep sleep, still not recovered From the lingering effect of wine, I inquired of the one rolling up the screen; But the answer came: “The cherry-apple blossoms Are still the same.” “Oh, don’t you know, don’t you […]...
35. On the Wye in May Now is the perfect moment of the year. Half naked branches, half a mist of green, Vivid and delicate the slopes appear; The cool, soft air is neither fierce nor keen, And in the temperate sun we feel no fear; Of all the hours which shall be and have been, It is the briefest as […]...
36. To the Tune of The fragrance of the pink lotus Fails, the jade mat hints of autumn. Softly I unfasten my silk cloak, Who is sending a letter from Among the clouds? When the swan message returns, The balcony is flooded with moonlight. The blossoms drift on, the water flows. There is the same yearning of the heart, But […]...
37. The Gardener XLVI: You Left Me You left me and went on your way. I thought I should mourn for you And set your solitary image in my Heart wrought in a golden song. But ah, my evil fortune, time is Short. Youth wanes year after year; the Spring days are fugitive; the frail Flowers die for nothing, and the wise […]...
38. The Sick Man and the Nightingale (From Lenau.) So late, and yet a nightingale? Long since have dropp’d the blossoms pale, The summer fields are ripening, And yet a sound of spring? O tell me, didst thou come to hear, Sweet Spring, that I should die this year; And call’st across from the far shore To me one greeting more?...
39. In spring and summer winds may blow In spring and summer winds may blow, And rains fall after, hard and fast; The tender leaves, if beaten low, Shine but the more for shower and blast But when their fated hour arrives, When reapers long have left the field, When maidens rifle turn’d-up hives, And their last juice fresh apples yield, A leaf […]...
40. The Rhodora On being asked, Whence is the flower? In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay; Here might […]...