The water deep, in boat,
    Or raft-sustained, I’d go;
  And where the stream did narrow seem,
    I dived or breasted through. 
  I labored to increase
    Our means, or great or small;
  When ’mong friends near death did appear,
    On knees to help I’d crawl.

  No cherishing you give,
    I’m hostile in your eyes. 
  As pedler’s wares for which none cares,
    My virtues you despise.

  When poverty was nigh,
   I strove our means to spare;
  You, now rich grown, me scorn to own;
   To poison me compare.

  The stores for winter piled
   Are all unprized in spring. 
  So now, elate with your new mate,
   Myself away you fling. 
  Your cool disdain for me
   A bitter anguish hath. 
  The early time, our love’s sweet prime,
   In you wakes only wrath.

Soldiers of Wei Bewail Separation from Their Families

  List to the thunder and roll of the drum! 
    See how we spring and brandish the dart! 
  Some raise Ts’aou’s walls; some do field work at home;
    But we to the southward lonely depart.

  Our chief, Sun Tsze-chung, agreement has made,
    Our forces to join with Ch’in and with Sung. 
  When shall we back from this service be led? 
    Our hearts are all sad, our courage unstrung.

  Here we are halting, and there we delay;
    Anon we soon lose our high-mettled steeds. 
  The forest’s gloom makes our steps go astray;
    Each thicket of trees our searching misleads.

  For death as for life, at home or abroad,
    We pledged to our wives our faithfulest word. 
  Their hands clasped in ours, together we vowed,
    We’d live to old age in sweetest accord.

  This march to the South can end but in ill;
    Oh! never shall we our wives again meet. 
  The word that we pledged we cannot fulfil;
    Us home returning they never will greet.

An Officer Tells of His Mean Employment

  With mind indifferent, things I easy take;
  In every dance I prompt appearance make:—­
  Then, when the sun is at his topmost height,
  There, in the place that courts the public sight.

  With figure large I in the courtyard dance,
  And the duke smiles, when he beholds me prance. 
  A tiger’s strength I have; the steeds swift bound;
  The reins as ribbons in my hands are found.

  See how I hold the flute in my left hand;
  In right the pheasant’s plume, waved like a wand;
  With visage red, where rouge you think to trace,
  While the duke pleased, sends down the cup of grace!

  Hazel on hills; the ling in meadow damp;—­
  Each has its place, while I’m a slighted scamp. 
  My thoughts go back to th’ early days of Chow,
  And muse upon its chiefs, not equalled now. 
    O noble chiefs, who then the West adorned,
    Would ye have thus neglected me and scorned?