Short Selections

Since it is so hard to find this year's language and literature short selections online, I figure I'll put them all here. Tell me if there are any typos.

SONG: I WATERED MY HORSE AT THE LONG WALL CAVES

--Ch’en Lin

I watered my horse at the Long Wall caves,

Water so cold it hurt his bones;

I went and spoke to the Long Wall boss:

“We’re soldiers from T’ai’yüan—

will you keep us here forever?”

“Public works go according to schedule—

swing your hammer, pitch your voice in with the rest!”

A man’d be better off to die in battle

Than eat his heart out building the Long Wall!

The Long Wall—how it winds and winds,

Winds and winds three thousand li;

Here on the border, so many strong boys;

In the houses back home, so many widows and wives.

I sent a letter to my wife:

“Better remarry than wait any longer—

serve your new mother-in-law with care

and sometimes remember the husband you once had.”

In answer her letter came to the border:

“What nonsense do you write me now?

Now when you’re in the thick of danger,

How could I rest by another man’s side?”

(He) If you bear a son, don’t bring him up!

But a daughter—feed her good dried meat.

Only you can’t see, here by the Long Wall,

The bones of the dead men heaped about!

(She) I bound up my hair and went to serve you;

constant constant was the care of my heart.

Too well I know your borderland troubles;

And I—can I go on like this much longer?

SENT TO MY TWO LITTLE CHILDREN IN THE EAST OF LU

-- Li Po

Wu land mulberry leaves grow green,

Already Wu silkworms have slept three times.

I left my family in the east of Lu;

Who sows our fields there on the dark side of Mt. Kuel?

Spring chores too long untended,

River journeys that leave me dazed—

South winds blow my homing heart;

It soars and comes to rest before the wine tower.

East of the tower a peach tree grows,

Branches and leaves brushed with blue mist,

A tree I planted myself,

Parted from it these three years.

The peach now is tall as the tower

And still my journey knows no return.

P’ing-yang, my darling girl,

Picks blossoms, leaning by the peach,

Picks blossoms and does not see me;

Her tears flow like a welling fountain.

The little boy, named Po-ch’in,

Is shoulder high to his elder sister;

Side by side they walk beneath the peach—

Who will pat them with loving hands?

I lose myself in thoughts of them;

Day by day care burns out my heart.

On this piece of cut silk I’ll write my far-away thoughts

And send them floating down the river Wen-yang.

THE TERRACE IN THE SNOW

-- Su Tung Po (Translated by Kenneth Rexroth)

In the golden twilight the rain

Was like silk threads. During the night

It cleared. The wind fell. It grew

Colder. My covers felt damp

And cold. Without my knowing it,

The snow had drifted into

The Room like heaps of salt. At

The fifth watch, in the first flush

Of dawn, I close the curtain

Of the study. During the

Rest of the night I listen

To the ice, warping the colored

Tiles of the roof. In the morning

I sweep the Northern terrace

And look out at Saddle Peak.

It is clear of clouds and I

Can see both summits. Above

The village in the morning

Sunlight, crows begin to circle.

The mud of the streets is covered

With white. No cart track has marked it.

Ice has turned the shop roofs to

White jade. Snow has filled the doorways

With rice. The last cicadas

Have long since gone to earth. Now

They will have to dig a thousand

Feet deeper. Some clouds pile up,

The color of dried moss. My

Chest bothers me again.

I feel I have lost the

Ability to write.

The icicles on the eaves

Drone in the wind like the swords

Of murderers.

HALF OF ME IS ACHING

- Wang Xiaoni

A pretty little bug

Would rather gnaw at my tooth

The right side of the world

Suddenly becomes enchanting

The body is a shabby house

From the very beginning

In half of me a black flame is leaping

Half of me is filled with the sound of medicine

You reach out both hands

One grabs me

The other grabs the opaque air

Pain is life, too

We can never hold it down

Sit, then stand up

Let the wind blow here and there

When pain sparkles

You realize the world is far from ordinary

We are not healthy

But

We still like to walk around

I use the half that’s not aching

To adore you

Use my left hand to push the door open

The right side of the world

Is bright and luminous

The long hair of pain

Floats into a forest

That is me, too

That is another good woman

Kubla Khan

Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment

By Samuel Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, he sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

THE RIVER-MERCHANT'S WIFE: A LETTER by: Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

WHILE my hair was still cut straight across my forehead

I played about the front gate, pulling flowers

You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,

You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums

And we went on living in the village of Chokan:

Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.

I never laughed, being bashful.

Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.

Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever, and forever.

Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,

You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,

And you have been gone five months.

The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,

Too deep to clear them away!

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.

The paired butterflies are already yellow with August

Over the grass in the West garden,

They hurt me.

I grow older,

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,

And I will come out to meet you,

As far as Cho-fu-Sa.