Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell, trans.

From “Chinese Written Wall Pictures”

Li Hai-ku—Nineteenth Century

THE NIGHT is the color of spring mists.

The lamp-flower falls,

And the flame bursts out brightly.

In the midst of the disorder of the dressing-table

Lies a black eye-stone.

A golden hairpin has fallen to the ground.

She leans against a screen,

Arch, coquettish, welcoming his arrival.

Then suddenly striking the strings of her table-lute,

She sings—

And her face is like rain whitening the Gorge of Witches

And like the bright busy movement of the Western Sea.