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.