Nhuan Xuan Le

I have left my children to save my own hide
While I could not have prepared them for life
With their kids nobody knows what would betide
To their future and towards which how to strive.
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If he won her heart, he would brag
That those who courted her he rose above;
Being in glory, he surely would never nag
At having allegedly misplaced his love!
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Nếu chiếm được nàng, chàng sẽ khoe:

Phục chàng, tình-địch hết ho-he!
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You asked me to tell about my native land,
And you made as if you did all understand;
But, I was aware you gave to it no priority,
Except to amuse yourself with your curiosity.
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Em hỏi anh về nước Việt quê anh,
Và gật đầu ra vẻ cảm-thông nhanh;
Nhưng anh biết: em không hề chú-trọng
Mà chỉ hiếu-kỳ vớ-vẩn chuyện xung quanh.
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Of what is good and of what is bad,
The human race owes this knowledge to Eve.
By getting herself and Adam in fig leaves clad,
She was the first human Wisdom to conceive.
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I have heard palaver, over historic issues ranged,
Such as, "If Cleopatra's nose had been shorter,
The whole face of the world would have changed! "
But who asked "How? " would be a blabber aborter!
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After the year two thousand, I will be still alive,
And so will other animals and worms.
There still will be vegetables and germs,
And mundane life as ever, rain or shine.
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Sau năm hai ngàn, ta vẫn sống an-nhiên;

Loài súc-vật, loài côn-trùng cũng thế.
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If angels are sinless, so as much are babies.
How unjust to hold one liable for ancestral sin?
Angel is substance's nature, sin attribute's rabies
Sinners impregnate the character of growing kin.
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There are paths and persons known to each other
Since the couple began to date one another.
Her hair flowing over his shoulder used to rejoice;
And how sweet did sound the sweetheart's voice!
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Có những con đường quen thuộc cũ

Từ ngày đôi lứa mới yêu nhau.
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Since then I have undergone a thinking innovation

That both female and male take the same orientation.
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Từ dạo quen em, anh "đổi mới" tư-duy
Rằng nữ hay nam đều nhất-hướng đồng-quy.
Phải "tôn-trọng" em, nên anh đành đáp-ứng,
Thỏa-mãn nhu-cầu mới xứng nghĩa tương-tri.
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There still are many a thing

Science has not found the source.
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You asked me, "Whom are you looking for

While plenty are ready within your door? "
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Em hỏi: -Anh tìm ai
Khi bên mình có đủ?
-Ôi, những vì vương-chủ
Thống-ngự cả cung-đài,
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I have seen an old woman woebegone to bare:

Her children and their beds have no time to care.
She lived with co-sufferers in the home for the aged;
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Tôi có thấy một bà già thiểu-não;
Con rể dâu không rảnh để chăm lo.
Cùng đồng-cảnh sống trong nhà dưỡng-lão;
Héo-hắt hồn trong thể-xác còm+xo.
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I am from Vietnam

Of a superhuman race as they used to embalm
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