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All withers in the autumn air: wine quickly wears off: Bleak and dismal, it's always      like feelings felt at parting. At dusk, I lean on a pillar:      I don't go home; My heart breaks at the patter of wind and rain      on the green lotus.

                       Standing            between good and evil,      between the two frozen poles,                        at last            between man and man,                  and, looking hard,      I simply cannot understand how in the world life can make both ends meet.

For years my heart asked me for Jamshid's cup. That which it held it begged from strangers. It sought the pearl which lies outside the world's shell from the lost ones who wait by the edge of the sea. Last night I carried my dilemma to the old Magus that with his vision he might…

Orioles bubble in the shade of green sophora, secluded courtyard empty this spring day noon;                  painted curtain hangs,                  golden phoenixes dance, solitary, but the embroidered screen, one stick of incense.                  Clouds in the azure sky                  have no fixed home;      in vain my dreaming soul comes and goes;…

If I follow in her tracks she stirs up trouble, and if I rest from the search she rises up in anger. And if on the road for a moment, out of loyalty, I fall on her tracks like dust, like the wind she flees. And if I seek half a kiss, a hundred taunts,…

Her soul has returned to the deep void,      her spirit returned to mist: She stayed among mortal men      for only eighteen years. Yesterday, I gave away her skirts      and sashes to monks, My heart broke: they still were tied      to the strings of her lute.

What if time came to a stop? Surely the end would be struck dumb. Up on the hill the house where you were born is waiting for you to build it again. How and with what — bricks, wasn't it? The chimney's all you can remember: smoke vanishing in spirals like the string of a…

Don't ask how many complaints I have about her black            curls. I am so undone because of her that it's beyond telling. Let no one abandon heart and faith in hope of fidelity. I did. Do not ask me how sorry I am. With one gulp of wine which troubles no one I drew…