A Wife Mourns for Her Husband

  The dolichos grows and covers the thorn,
    O’er the waste is the dragon-plant creeping. 
  The man of my heart is away and I mourn—­
    What home have I, lonely and weeping?

  Covering the jujubes the dolichos grows,
    The graves many dragon-plants cover;
  But where is the man on whose breast I’d repose? 
    No home have I, having no lover!

  Fair to see was the pillow of horn,
    And fair the bed-chamber’s adorning;
  But the man of my heart is not here, and I mourn
    All alone, and wait for the morning.

  While the long days of summer pass over my head,
    And long winter nights leave their traces,
  I’m alone!  Till a hundred of years shall have fled,
    And then I shall meet his embraces.

  Through the long winter nights I am burdened with fears,
    Through the long summer days I am lonely;
  But when time shall have counted its hundreds of years
    I then shall be his—­and his only!

BOOK XI

THE ODES OF TS’IN

Celebrating the Opulence of the Lords of Ts’in

  Our ruler to the hunt proceeds;
  And black as iron are his steeds
  That heed the charioteer’s command,
  Who holds the six reins in his hand. 
  His favorites follow to the chase,
  Rejoicing in his special grace.

  The season’s males, alarmed, arise—­
  The season’s males, of wondrous size. 
  Driven by the beaters, forth they spring,
  Soon caught within the hunters’ ring. 
  “Drive on their left,” the ruler cries;
  And to its mark his arrow flies.

  The hunting done, northward he goes;
  And in the park the driver shows
  The horses’ points, and his own skill
  That rules and guides them at his will. 
  Light cars whose teams small bells display,
  The long-and short-mouthed dogs convey.

A Complaint

  He lodged us in a spacious house,
    And plenteous was our fare. 
  But now at every frugal meal
    There’s not a scrap to spare. 
  Alas! alas that this good man
  Could not go on as he began!

  A Wife’s Grief Because of Her Husband’s Absence

  The falcon swiftly seeks the north,
  And forest gloom that sent it forth. 
  Since I no more my husband see,
  My heart from grief is never free. 
  O how is it, I long to know,
  That he, my lord, forgets me so?

  Bushy oaks on the mountain grow,
  And six elms where the ground is low. 
  But I, my husband seen no more,
  My sad and joyless fate deplore. 
  O how is it, I long to know,
  That he, my lord, forgets me so?

  The hills the bushy wild plums show,
  And pear-trees grace the ground below. 
  But, with my husband from me gone,
  As drunk with grief, I dwell alone. 
  O how is it, I long to know,
  That he, my lord, forgets me so?