白居易诗

Poems of Bai Juyi


Index

真娘墓

A True Woman's Grave


(墓在虎丘寺)

(A grave at Tiger Hill Temple)

真娘墓
虎丘道

True woman's grave
By the Tiger Hill road.

不识真娘镜中面
唯见真娘墓头草

I don't know the face you saw in the mirror.
I can only see the grass upon your grave.

霜摧桃李风折莲
真娘死时犹少年

Frost withers the peaches and plums. Wind snaps the water lily.
It was only a year or three ago that you died.

脂肤荑手不牢固
世间尤物难留连

Fresh face, fair hands, all withered now.
This world is extraordinarily difficult to part with.

难留连
易销歇

Hard to leave behind.
Easy to finally rest.

塞北花
江南雪

North of your grave are flowers
In fresh Jiangnan snow.

-- 白居易


废话

Sometimes I don't know nothin' 'bout nothin'. I don't know when Bai Juyi wrote this poem. I don't know who the woman in the grave was. I don't know why she was true. But Bai Juyi seems to know -- so we're all good. I do know that we are south of the big river. I know that it is autumn because the early snowstorm has struck the full fruit on the trees. And I already knew that this world is extraordinarily difficult to part with. But I didn't mind hearing it again from Bai Juyi.

Index