A Lute of Jade

A lovely maiden, roaming
The wild dark valley through,
Culls from the shining waters
Lilies and lotus blue.

With leaves the peach-trees are laden,
The wind sighs through the haze,
And the willows wave their shadows
Down the oriole-haunted ways.

As, passion-tranced, I follow,
I hear the old refrain
Of Spring's eternal story,
That was old and is young again.

Athwart the bed
I watch the moonbeams cast a trail
So bright, so cold, so frail.
That for a space it gleams
Like hoar-frost on the margin of my dreams.
I raise my head, --
The splendid moon I see:
Then droop my head,
And sink to dreams of thee --
My Fatherland, of thee!

There was a King of Liang -- a king of wondrous might --
Who kept an open palace, where music charmed the night --

Since he was Lord of Liang a thousand years have flown,
And of the towers he builded yon ruin stands alone.

There reigns a heavy silence; gaunt weeds through windows pry,
And down the streets of Liang old echoes, wailing, die.

Fair is the pine grove and the mountain stream
That gathers to the valley far below,
The black-winged junks on the dim sea reach, adream,
The pale blue firmament o'er banks of snow.
And her, more fair, more supple smooth than jade,
Gleaming among the dark red woods I follow:
Now lingering, now as a bird afraid
Of pirate wings she seeks the haven hollow.
Vague, and beyond the daylight of recall,
Into the cloudland past my spirit flies,
As though before the gold of autumn's fall,
Before the glow of the moon-flooded skies.