Tz'u No. 16 (Bajiao)

Related poetry:

1. Sleepless If I could have your arms tonight- But half the world and the broken sea Lie between you and me. The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard, Beating all night against the barren stone, The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard Makes me more alone. If you were here, if you were only […]...
2. Rain Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me Remembering again that I shall die And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks For washing me cleaner than I have been Since I was born into this solitude. Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: […]...
3. Away, Melancholy Away, melancholy, Away with it, let it go. Are not the trees green, The earth as green? Does not the wind blow, Fire leap and the rivers flow? Away melancholy. The ant is busy He carrieth his meat, All things hurry To be eaten or eat. Away, melancholy. Man, too, hurries, Eats, couples, buries, He […]...
4. Oh, Gray And Tender Is The Rain Oh, gray and tender is the rain, That drips, drips on the pane! A hundred things come in the door, The scent of herbs, the thought of yore. I see the pool out in the grass, A bit of broken glass; The red flags running wet and straight, Down to the little flapping gate. Lombardy […]...
5. Awake, My Heart Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake! The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break, It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake The o’ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake! She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee: Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee, Already they watch the path thy […]...
6. Epilogue Patience, little Heart. One day a heavy, June-hot woman Will enter and shut the door to stay. And when your stifling heart would summon Cool, lonely night, her roused breasts will keep the night at bay, Sitting in your room like two tiger-lilies Flaming on after sunset, Destroying the cool, lonely night with the glow […]...
7. The End It is time for me to go, mother; I am going. When in the paling darkness of the lonely dawn you stretch out Your arms for your baby in the bed, I shall say, “Baby is not Here!”-mother, I am going. I shall become a delicate draught of air and caress you and I shall […]...
8. Blight Hard seeds of hate I planted That should by now be grown,- Rough stalks, and from thick stamens A poisonous pollen blown, And odors rank, unbreathable, From dark corollas thrown! At dawn from my damp garden I shook the chilly dew; The thin boughs locked behind me That sprang to let me through; The blossoms […]...
9. Redolence Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills; Cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway; And night bends near, a deepening shade of gray; The bass concerto of a bullfrog fills What silence there once was; globed searchlights play. Green hanging ferns adorn dark window sills, All drooping fronds, awaiting morning’s flares; Mosquitoes whine; the lissome […]...
10. Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise The Rain Beloved, let us once more praise the rain. Let us discover some new alphabet, For this, the often praised; and be ourselves, The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf, The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone, And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,- Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion, Beneath […]...
11. Tz'u No. 1 To the tune “Courtyard Filled with Fragrance” Fragrant grass beside the pond Green shade over the hall A clear cold comes through The window curtains Crescent moon beyond the golden bars And a flute sounds As if someone were coming But alone on my mat with a cup Gazing sadly into nothingness I want to […]...
12. John Evereldown “Where are you going to-night, to-night, Where are you going, John Evereldown? There’s never the sign of a star in sight, Nor a lamp that’s nearer than Tilbury Town. Why do you stare as a dead man might? Where are you pointing away from the light? And where are you going to-night, to-night, Where are […]...
13. My Heart, When First The Black-Bird Sings MY heart, when first the blackbird sings, My heart drinks in the song: Cool pleasure fills my bosom through And spreads each nerve along. My bosom eddies quietly, My heart is stirred and cool As when a wind-moved briar sweeps A stone into a pool But unto thee, when thee I meet, My pulses thicken […]...
14. Love Song I lie here thinking of you:- The stain of love Is upon the world! Yellow, yellow, yellow It eats into the leaves, Smears with saffron The horned branched the lean Heavily Against a smooth purple sky! There is no light Only a honey-thick stain That drips from leaf to leaf And limb to limb Spoiling […]...
15. After Us I don’t know if we’re in the beginning Or in the final stage. Tomas Tranströmer Rain is falling through the roof. And all that prospered under the sun, The books that opened in the morning And closed at night, and all day Turned their pages to the light; The sketches of boats and strong forearms […]...
16. The Way Through the Woods They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Before they planted the trees. It is underneath the coppice and heath, And the thin anemones. Only the keeper sees That, where the ring-dove […]...
17. The Death of the Flowers The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs […]...
18. The Beautiful Changes One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies On water; it glides So from the walker, it turns Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes. The beautiful changes as a forest is changed By a chameleon’s […]...
19. The Caterpillar Under this loop of honeysuckle, A creeping, coloured caterpillar, I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray, I nibble it leaf by leaf away. Down beneath grow dandelions, Daisies, old-man’s-looking-glasses; Rooks flap croaking across the lane. I eat and swallow and eat again. Here come raindrops helter-skelter; I munch and nibble unregarding: Hawthorn leaves are juicy […]...
20. Making Light Of It I call out a secret name, the name Of the angel who guards my sleep, And light grows in the east, a new light Like no other, as soft as the petals Of the blown rose in late summer. Yes, it is late summer in the West. Even the grasses climbing the Sierras Reach for […]...
21. On Faith How do people stay true to each other? When I think of my parents all those years In the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever Longing for anything else – or: no, they must Have longed; there must have been flickerings, Stray desires, nights she turned from him, Sleepless, and wept, nights he rose […]...
22. Riddle Where far in forest I am laid, In a place ringed around by stones, Look for no melancholy shade, And have no thoughts of buried bones; For I am bodiless and bright, And fill this glade with sudden glow; The leaves are washed in under-light; Shade lies upon the boughs like snow....
23. Late, Late, So Late Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light had we: for that we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. No light: so late! […]...
24. 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 […]...
25. Storm Windows People are putting up storm windows now, Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon, I saw storm windows lying on the ground, Frame-full of rain; through the water and glass I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream Away in lines like seaweed on […]...
26. The Den o' Fowlis Beautiful Den o’ Fowlis, most charming to be seen In the summer season, when your trees are green; Especially in the bright and clear month of June, When your flowere and shrubberies are in full bloom. There visitors can enjoy themselves during the holidays, And be shaded by the trees from the sun’s rays, And […]...
27. VI. Evening, as slow thy placid shades descend EVENING, as slow thy placid shades descend, Veiling with gentlest hush the landscape still, The lonely battlement, and farthest hill And wood; I think of those that have no friend; Who now perhaps, by melancholy led, From the broad blaze of day, where pleasure flaunts, Retiring, wander ‘mid thy lonely haunts Unseen; and mark the […]...
28. At That Hour At that hour when all things have repose, O lonely watcher of the skies, Do you hear the night wind and the sighs Of harps playing unto Love to unclose The pale gates of sunrise? When all things repose, do you alone Awake to hear the sweet harps play To Love before him on his […]...
29. Woman Work I’ve got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I’ve got shirts to press The tots to dress The can to be cut I gotta clean up this […]...
30. The True Lover The lad came to the door at night, When lovers crown their vows, And whistled soft and out of sight In shadow of the boughs. “I shall not vex you with my face Henceforth, my love, for aye; So take me in your arms a space Before the cast is grey. “When I from hence […]...
31. Rain on the Hill Now on the hill The fitful wind is so still That never a wimpling mist uplifts, Nor a trembling leaf drop-laden stirs; From the ancient firs Aroma of balsam drifts, And the silent places are filled With elusive odors distilled By the rain from asters empearled and frilled, And a wild wet savor that dwells […]...
32. Snail Poem Make my grave shape of heart so like a flower be free aired & handsome felt, Grave root pillow, tung up from grave & wigle at blown up clowd. Ear turnes close to underlayer of green felt moss & sound of rain dribble thru this layer down to the roots that will tickle my ear. […]...
33. Sweet Love, Sweet Thorn, When Lightly To My Heart Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain, And lie disheveled in the grass apart, A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain, While rainy evening drips to misty night, And misty night to cloudy morning clears, And clouds disperse across the gathering light, And […]...
34. Half-waking I thought it was the little bed I slept in long ago; A straight white curtain at the head, And two smooth knobs below. I thought I saw the nursery fire, And in a chair well-known My mother sat, and did not tire With reading all alone. If I should make the slightest sound To […]...
35. In The Cool Of The Evening I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear A sound, a little sound? My curious ear Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree Goes whisper, whisper, whisper silently Till all its whispers spread into the sound Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground, The shade is deep and He may pass […]...
36. When I hoped, I recollect When I hoped, I recollect Just the place I stood At a Window facing West Roughest Air was good Not a Sleet could bite me Not a frost could cool Hope it was that kept me warm Not Merino shawl When I feared I recollect Just the Day it was Worlds were lying out to […]...
37. Fly Not Yet Fly not yet, ’tis just the hour, When pleasure, like the midnight flower That scorns the eye of vulgar light, Begins to bloom for sons of night, And maids who love the moon. ‘Twas but to bless these hours of shade That beauty and the moon were made; ‘Tis then their soft attractions glowing Set […]...
38. Hence, All You Vain Delights from the Nice Valour Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly: There’s nought in this life sweet, If man were wise to see’t, But only melancholy, O sweetest melancholy! Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that’s fastened to the ground, A tongue chained […]...
39. Melancholy HENCE, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly! There ‘s naught in this life sweet, If men were wise to see’t, But only melancholy O sweetest melancholy! Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes, A sight that piercing mortifies, A look that ‘s fasten’d to the ground, A […]...
40. Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast As Thou Art Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and […]...