Song of Flower Shrub

Zhang Xian

When will the sorrow end

To watch my parting friend

From a tower above?

Nothing is so intense as love.

My sorrow interweaves

A thousand twigs of willow leaves;

The pathway east of the town

Is shrouded in wafting willow down.

His neighing steed is far away,

A cloud of dust still darkening the day.

Where is the place

To find my lover’s trace?

A pair of lovebirds seems to melt in water clean;

Little leaflike boats go

North and south, to and fro.

After dusk in the twilight

I dare not go up the painted bower on the height.

What will again be seen

But the waning moon shining on window-screen?

How deeply I envy peach and apricot trees

Newly wed to and oft caressed by venal breeze!