Chang Jo-hu

When heaven reveals her primal stainless blue,Alone within the firmament there burnsThe tiny torch of dusk. What startled eyesUplifted from the restless stream first metThe full round glory of the moon! Yon orbThat pales upon the flood of broad Kiang,When did she first through twilight mists unveilHer wonders to the world?Men come and go;New generations hunger at the heelsOf those that yield possession. Still the moonFulfils her phases. While the tides of timeEat out the rocks of empire, and the starsOf human destiny adown the voidGo glittering to their doom, she changeless sweepsThrough all her times and destinies. Alas!The little lives that swarmed beneath the moon,I cannot count them. This alone I know --That, wave on wave, the Kiang seeks the sea,And not a wave returns.One small white cloudThreading the vasty vault of heaven recallsMy heart unto her loneliness. I sailBetween two banks, where heavy boughs enlace,Whose verdurous luxuriance wakes once moreMy many griefs. None know me as I am,Steering to strange adventure. None may tellIf, steeped in the same moonlight, lies afarSome dim pavilion where my lady dreamsOf me. Ah, happy moon! low lingering moon!That with soft touch now brightens into jadeLintel and door, and when she lifts the blindFloats through the darkened chamber of her sleep;While leagues away my love-winged messagesGo flocking home; and though they mingle not,Our thoughts seek one another. In the liltOf winds I hear her whisper: "Oh that IMight melt into the moonbeams, and with themLeap through the void, and shed myself with themUpon my lover." Slow the night creeps on.Sleep harbours in the little room. She dreams --Dreams of a fall o' flowers. Alas! young SpringLies on the threshold of maternity,And still he comes not. Still the flowing streamSweeps on, but the swift torrents of green hoursAre licked into the brazen skies betweenTheir widening banks. The great deliberate moonNow leans toward the last resort of night,Gloom of the western waves. She dips her rim,She sinks, she founders in the mist; and stillThe stream flows on, and to the insatiate seaHurries her white-wave flocks innumerableIn never-ending tale. On such a nightHow many tireless travellers may attainThe happy goal of their desire! So dreamsMy lady till the moon goes down, and lo!A rush of troubled waters floods her soul,While black forebodings rise from deeps unknownAnd the cold trail of fear creeps round her heart.