Qiu Ji · Unwilling to Send Word; a Later Promise Missed

The mountains' color is a misty blur; a cold eye takes in wind and haze, and the hanging sleeves snap and crack. Just look at the river's flow, parting Jing from Wei so clearly — but does it know it decays year upon year? After all these years have gone by, reckoning it up, the shooting of tigers must lie far back and long ago. Which of them is ever enough! Following what is right — come from far away, with many lifetimes still to bear and repay.

The gray cliff darkens, everything that meets the eye is murky, grass and trees go rustling, and somewhere a xiao pipe plays on and on. I sigh at the cloud-heights, think of the birds in flight; the blue void comes down to earth and turns its head the wrong way. Do not ask why a person has grown thinner. Do not speak of having no choice, do not covet the jostling human world — I was cold and thin-hearted from the start, half a life marked down.