Wang Changling Poems

Too young to have learned what sorrow means,
Attired for spring, she climbs to her high chamber. . . .
The new green of the street-willows is wounding her heart -
Just for a title she sent him to war.
...

Last night, while a gust blew peach-petals open
And the moon shone high on the Palace Beyond Time,
The Emperor gave P'ing-yang, for her dancing,
Brocades against the cold spring-wind.
...

Drink, my horse, while we cross the autumn water! -
The stream is cold and the wind like a sword,
As we watch against the sunset on the sandy plain,
Far, far away, shadowy Ling-t'ao.
...

The moon goes back to the time of Ch'in, the wall to the time of Han,
And the road our troops are travelling goes back three hundred miles. . . .
Oh, for the Winged General at the Dragon City -
That never a Tartar horseman might cross the Yin Mountains!
...

Cicadas complain of thin mulberry-trees
In the Eighth-month chill at the frontier pass.
Through the gate and back again, all along the road,
There is nothing anywhere but yellow reeds and grasses
...

She brings a broom at dawn to the Golden Palace doorway
And dusts the hall from end to end with her round fan,
And, for all her jade-whiteness, she envies a crow
Whose cold wings are kindled in the Court of the Bright Sun.
...