The River Song

This boat is of shato-wood, and its gunwales are cutmagnolia,Musicians with jewelled flutes and with pipes of goldFill full the sides in rows, and our wineIs rich for a thousand cups.We carry singing girls, drift with the drifting water,Yet Sennin needsA yellow stork for a charger, and all our seamenWould follow the white gulls or ride them.Kutsu's prose songHangs with the sun and moon.

King So's terraced palaceis now but a barren hill,But I draw pen on this bargeCausing the five peaks to tremble,And I have joy in these wordslike the joy of blue islands.(If glory could last foreverThen the waters of Han would flow northward.)

And I have moped in the Emperor's garden, awaitingan order-to-write!I looked at the dragon-pond, with its willow-colouredwaterJust reflecting the sky's tinge,And heard the five-score nightingales aimlessly singing.

The eastern wind brings the green colour into the islandgrasses at Yei-shu,The purple house and the crimson are full of Springsoftness.South of the pond the willow-tips are half-blue andbluer,Their cords tangle in mist, against the brocade-likepalace.Vine-strings a hundred feet long hang down from carvedrailings,And high over the willows, the fine birds sing to eachother, and listen,Crying--"Kwan, Kuan," for the early wind, and the feelof it.The wind bundles itself into a bluish cloud and wanders off.Over a thousand gates, over a thousand doors are the soundsof spring singing,And the Emperor is at Ko.Five clouds hang aloft, bright on the purple sky,The imperial guards come forth from the golden house withtheir armour a-gleaming.The emperor in his jewelled car goes out to inspect hisflowers,He goes out to Hori, to look at the wing-flapping storks,He returns by way of Sei rock, to hear the new nightingales,For the gardens at Jo-run are full of new nightingales,Their sound is mixed in this flute,Their voice is in the twelve pipes here.