Come slowly -- Eden!
Lips unused to Thee --
Bashful -- sip thy Jessamines --
As the fainting Bee --
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums --
Counts his nectars --
Enters -- and is lost in Balms.
A flower was offer'd to me,
Such a flower as May never bore;
But I said 'I've a Pretty Rose-tree,'
And I passed the sweet flower o'er.
Then I went to my Pretty Rose-tree,
To tend her by day and by night;
But my Rose turn'd away with jealousy,
And her thorns were my only delight.
I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'
'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.
'A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'
The poet stands in the Center
And stares into deep mysteries.
He's nourished by reading Classics
And tombs of the men in Histories.
He sighs as four seasons pass by
And thinks upon ten-thousand things.
He's saddened by Autumn's leaf drop
And gladdened by the tender Spring.
He feels Winter's frost on his heart,
Though his mind may be up in a cloud.
And when he sings of ancestors'
Heroic deeds, he belts the song aloud.
He combs through great literature
Just as he roams the forest wild,
But in search of a "natural" --
Shown in elegant phrase and style.
And it's just such thoughts and feelings
That set my brush and mind wheeling.
The Original Chinese:
佇中區以玄覽，頤情志於典墳。
遵四時以嘆逝，瞻萬物而思紛。
悲落葉於勁秋，喜柔條於芳春，
心懍懍以懷霜，志眇眇而臨雲。
詠世德之駿烈，誦先人之清芬。
游文章之林府，嘉麗藻之彬彬。
慨投篇而援筆，聊宣之乎斯文。
Asleep on a leaf beneath lotus blooms,
Their fragrance floats across the misty lake.
Sudden rain - taps upon the canopy;
Its sound snaps me from sleep to wide awake!
The lotus is beaded with rain droplets --
Like pearls, drops roll together and apart;
The clear blobs coalesce like mercury,
Dripping to the river... back to their start.
This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond --
Invisible, as Music --
But positive, as Sound --
It beckons, and it baffles --
Philosophy, dont know --
And through a Riddle, at the last --
Sagacity, must go --
To guess it, puzzles scholars --
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown --
Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies --
Blushes, if any see --
Plucks at a twig of Evidence --
And asks a Vane, the way --
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit --
Strong Hallelujahs roll --
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul --
A little black thing among the snow,
Crying ''weep! 'weep!' in notes of woe!
'Where are thy father & mother? say?'
'They are both gone up to the church to pray.
'Because I was happy upon the heath,
'And smil'd among the winter's snow,
'They cloth'd me in the clothes of death,
'And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
'And because I am happy & dance & sing,
'They think they have done me no injury,
'And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,
'Who make up a heaven of our misery.'
Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality!
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable Sea?
Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood.
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road.
Shot the lithe Sleds like Shod vibrations
Emphacized and gone
It is the Past's supreme italic
Makes the Present mean --
Tiger Riding for Beginners 