Dreaming A Misty Road In The Southland Poem by East Sea Fairy Xing Yi

BY YAN JIDAO Translated by East-sea Fairy

I walked onto a misty road in the southland
in a fancy dream,
walking all over that land,
Yet neither there upstream, nor downstream,
was I able to encounter you, my Fair, pretty as moonbeam,
parted from me.
Finding nobody to tell my miserable mood, nor to scream
and I'm melancholy as melancholy can be,
I feel doleful and depressed for I missed to meet you in that dream fancy.

I want to take up my writing brush
to write you a message,
but even done, with wild geese gone south and fish sunk in hush,
I have no way eventually to mail it though I'm willing to pay double postage.
Feeling at a hopeless and helpless stage,
I start to play zither slowly
and let it tell how I feel in the cheerlessness cage.
But I just fail to cast off my complaints simply
even if I remove the column bars till they are broken completely.