鱼玄机诗

Poems of Yu Xuanji


Index

访赵炼师不遇

I Went to Visit Master Zhao But He Wasn't Home


何处同仙侣
青衣独在家
暖炉留煮药
邻院为煎茶

Where will we find our immortal companion?
Only a simple servant is at home.
He has herbs left boiling on the warm stove
And tea is simmering out in the courtyard.

画壁灯光暗
幡竿日影斜
殷勤重回首
墙外数枝花

Painted walls, dim in the lamplight.
A banner hangs in the slanting morning's rays.
Eagerly, I look all around and then look again.
Beyond the wall, so many branches are in bloom.

-- 鱼玄机


废话

Yu Xuanji, near life's end says, "I was not wrong to seek the best of company." I think that is what she is doing here. The term 炼师 means a Daoist master, a training master, training himself and others. Yu Xuanji knows what she is looking for in Daoism: the fragrant mind. But this time no teacher is there for her. This poem could have been written any time after she left her husband in 863.


Index