元稹　遣悲懷三首·之一 AN ELEGY I
謝公最小偏憐女
自嫁黔婁百事乖
顧我無衣搜藎篋
泥他沽酒拔金釵
野蔬充膳甘長藿
落葉添薪仰古槐
今日俸錢過十萬
與君營奠復營齋
O youngest, best-loved daughter of Xie,
Who unluckily married this penniless scholar,
You patched my clothes from your own wicker basket,
And I coaxed off your hairpins of gold, to buy wine with;
For dinner we had to pick wild herbs --
And to use dry locust-leaves for our kindling.
...Today they are paying me a hundred thousand --
And all that I can bring to you is a temple sacrifice.

元稹　遣悲懷三首·之二 AN ElEGY II
昔日戲言身後事
今朝都到眼前來
衣裳已施行看盡
針線猶存未忍開
尚想舊情憐婢仆
也曾因夢送錢財
誠知此恨人人有
貧賤夫妻百事哀
We joked, long ago, about one of us dying,
But suddenly, before my eyes, you are gone.
Almost all your clothes have been given away;
Your needlework is sealed, I dare not look at it....
I continue your bounty to our men and our maids --
Sometimes, in a dream, I bring you gifts.
...This is a sorrow that all mankind must know --
But not as those know it who have been poor together.

元稹　遣悲懷三首·之三 AN ELEGY III
閑坐悲君亦自悲
百年都是幾多時
鄧攸無子尋知命
潘岳悼亡猶費詞
同穴 [上“穴”下“目”] 冥何所望
他生緣會更難期
惟將終夜長開眼
報答平生未展眉
I sit here alone, mourning for us both.
How many years do I lack now of my threescore and ten?
There have been better men than I to whom heaven denied a son,
There was a poet better than I whose dead wife could not hear him.
What have I to hope for in the darkness of our tomb?
You and I had little faith in a meeting after death-
Yet my open eyes can see all night
That lifelong trouble of your brow.

白居易　 TO MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS ADRIFT
IN TROUBLED TIMES THIS POEM OF THE MOON
自河南經亂，關內阻饑，兄弟離散，各在一處。因望月有感，聊書所懷，寄上浮梁大兄，於潛七兄，
烏江十五兄，兼示符離及下 [圭阝] 弟妹。 Since the disorders in Henan and the famine
in Guannei, my brothers and sisters have been scattered. Looking at the moon,
I express my thoughts in this poem, which I send to my eldest brother at
Fuliang, my seventh brother at Yuqian, My fifteen brother at Wujiang and my
younger brothers and sisters at Fuli and Xiagui.
時難年荒世業空
弟兄羈旅各西東
田園寥落干戈後
骨肉流離道路中
吊影分為千里雁
辭根散作九秋蓬
共看明月應垂淚
一夜鄉心五處同
My heritage lost through disorder and famine,
My brothers and sisters flung eastward and westward,
My fields and gardens wrecked by the war,
My own flesh and blood become scum of the street,
I moan to my shadow like a lone-wandering wildgoose,
I am torn from my root like a water-plant in autumn:
I gaze at the moon, and my tears run down
For hearts, in five places, all sick with one wish.

李商隱　錦瑟 THE INLAID HARP
錦瑟無端五十弦
一弦一柱思華年
莊生曉夢迷蝴蝶
望帝春心托杜鵑
滄海月明珠有淚
藍田日暖玉生煙
此情可待成追憶
只是當時已惘然
I wonder why my inlaid harp has fifty strings,
Each with its flower-like fret an interval of youth.
...The sage Chuangzi is day-dreaming, bewitched by butterflies,
The spring-heart of Emperor Wang is crying in a cuckoo,
Mermen weep their pearly tears down a moon-green sea,
Blue fields are breathing their jade to the sun....
And a moment that ought to have lasted for ever
Has come and gone before I knew.

李商隱　無題 TO ONE UNNAMED
昨夜星辰昨夜風
畫樓西畔桂堂東
身無彩鳳雙飛翼
心有靈犀一點通
隔座送鉤春酒暖
分曹射覆蠟燈紅
嗟余聽鼓應官去
走馬蘭臺類轉蓬
The stars of last night and the wind of last night
Are west of the Painted Chamber and east of Cinnamon Hall.
...Though I have for my body no wings like those of the bright- coloured phoenix,
Yet I feel the harmonious heart-beat of the Sacred Unicorn.
Across the spring-wine, while it warms me, I prompt you how to bet
Where, group by group, we are throwing dice in the light of a crimson lamp;
Till the rolling of a drum, alas, calls me to my duties
And I mount my horse and ride away, like a water-plant cut adrift.

李商隱　隋宮 THE PALACE OF THE SUI EMPEROR
紫泉宮殿鎖煙霞
欲取蕪城作帝家
玉璽不緣歸日角
錦帆應是到天涯
於今腐草無螢火
終古垂楊有暮鴉
地下若逢陳後主
豈宜重問後庭花
His Palace of Purple Spring has been taken by mist and cloud,
As he would have taken all Yangzhou to be his private domain
But for the seal of imperial jade being seized by the first Tang Emperor,
He would have bounded with his silken sails the limits of the world.
Fire-flies are gone now, have left the weathered grasses,
But still among the weeping-willows crows perch at twilight.
...If he meets, there underground, the Later Chen Emperor,
Do you think that they will mention a Song of Courtyard Flowers?

李商隱　無題二首·之一 TO ONE UNNAMED I
來是空言去絕蹤
月斜樓上五更鐘
夢為遠別啼難喚
書被催成墨未濃
蠟照半籠金翡翠
麝熏微度繡芙蓉
劉郎已恨蓬山遠
更隔蓬山一萬重
You said you would come, but you did not, and you left me with no other trace
Than the moonlight on your tower at the fifth-watch bell.
I cry for you forever gone, I cannot waken yet,
I try to read your hurried note, I find the ink too pale.
...Blue burns your candle in its kingfisher-feather lantern
And a sweet breath steals from your hibiscus-broidered curtain.
But far beyond my reach is the Enchanted Mountain,
And you are on the other side, ten thousand peaks away.

李商隱　無題二首·之二 TO ONE UNNAMED II
颯颯東風細雨來
芙蓉塘外有輕雷
金蟾嚙鎖燒香入
玉虎牽絲汲井回
賈氏窺簾韓掾少
宓妃留枕魏王才
春心莫共花爭發
一寸想思一寸灰
A misty rain comes blowing with a wind from the east,
And wheels faintly thunder beyond Hibiscus Pool.
...Round the golden-toad lock, incense is creeping;
The jade tiger tells, on its cord, of water being drawn
A great lady once, from behind a screen, favoured a poor youth;
A fairy queen brought a bridal mat once for the ease of a prince and then vanished.
...Must human hearts blossom in spring, like all other flowers?
And of even this bright flame of love, shall there be only ashes?

李商隱　籌筆驛 IN THE CAMP OF THE SKETCHING BRUSH
猿鳥猶疑畏簡書
風云常為護儲胥
徒令上將揮神筆
終見降王走傳車
管樂有才原不忝
關張無命欲何如
他年錦里經祠廟
梁父吟成恨有馀
Monkeys and birds are still alert for your orders
And winds and clouds eager to shield your fortress.
...You were master of the brush, and a sagacious general,
But your Emperor, defeated, rode the prison-cart.
You were abler than even the greatest Zhou statesmen,
Yet less fortunate than the two Shu generals who were killed in action.
And, though at your birth-place a temple has been built to you,
You never finished singing your Song of the Holy Mountain

李商隱　無題 TO ONE UNNAMED III
相見時難別亦難
東風無力百花殘
春蠶到死絲方盡
蠟炬成灰淚始乾
曉鏡但愁云鬢改
夜吟應覺月光寒
蓬萊此去無多路
青鳥殷勤為探看
Time was long before I met her, but is longer since we parted,
And the east wind has arisen and a hundred flowers are gone,
And the silk-worms of spring will weave until they die
And every night the candles will weep their wicks away.
Mornings in her mirror she sees her hair-cloud changing,
Yet she dares the chill of moonlight with her evening song.
...It is not so very far to her Enchanted Mountain
O blue-birds, be listening!-Bring me what she says!

李商隱　春雨 SPRING RAIN
悵臥新春白袷衣
白門寥落意多違
紅樓隔雨相望冷
珠箔飄燈獨自歸
遠路應悲春 [日宛] 晚
殘宵猶得夢依稀
玉 [王當] 緘札何由達
萬里云羅一雁飛
I am lying in a white-lined coat while the spring approaches,
But am thinking only of the White Gate City where I cannot be.
...There are two red chambers fronting the cold, hidden by the rain,
And a lantern on a pearl screen swaying my lone heart homeward.
...The long road ahead will be full of new hardship,
With, late in the nights, brief intervals of dream.
Oh, to send you this message, this pair of jade earrings! --
I watch a lonely wildgoose in three thousand miles of cloud.

李商隱　無題二首·之一 TO ONE UNNAMED IV
鳳尾香羅薄幾重
碧文圓頂夜深縫
扇裁月魄羞難掩
車走雷聲語未通
曾是寂寥金燼暗
斷無消息石榴紅
斑騅只系垂楊岸
何處西南任好風
A faint phoenix-tail gauze, fragrant and doubled,
Lines your green canopy, closed for the night....
Will your shy face peer round a moon-shaped fan,
And your voice be heard hushing the rattle of my carriage?
It is quiet and quiet where your gold lamp dies,
How far can a pomegranate-blossom whisper?
...I will tether my horse to a river willow
And wait for the will of the southwest wind.

李商隱　無題二首·之二 TO ONE UNNAMED V
重帷深下莫愁堂
臥後清宵細細長
神女生涯原是夢
小姑居處本無郎
風波不信菱枝弱
月露誰教桂葉香
直道相思了無益
未妨惆悵是清狂
There are many curtains in your care-free house,
Where rapture lasts the whole night long.
...What are the lives of angels but dreams
If they take no lovers into their rooms?
...Storms are ravishing the nut-horns,
Moon- dew sweetening cinnamon-leaves
I know well enough naught can come of this union,
Yet how it serves to ease my heart!

溫庭筠　利洲南渡 NEAR THE LIZHOU FERRY
澹然空水對斜暉
曲島蒼茫接翠微
波上馬嘶看棹去
柳邊人歇待船歸
數叢沙草群鷗散
萬頃江田一鷺飛
誰解乘舟尋范蠡
五湖煙水獨忘機
The sun has set in the water's clear void,
And little blue islands are one with the sky.
On the bank a horse neighs. A boat goes by.
People gather at a willow- clump and wait for the ferry.
Down by the sand-bushes sea-gulls are circling,
Over the wide river-lands flies an egret.
...Can you guess why I sail, like an ancient wise lover,
Through the misty Five Lakes, forgetting words?

溫庭筠　蘇武廟 THE TEMPLE OF SU WU
蘇武魂銷漢使前
古祠高樹兩茫然
云邊雁斷胡天月
隴上羊歸塞草煙
回日樓臺非甲帳
去時冠劍是丁年
茂陵不見封侯印
空向秋波哭逝川
Though our envoy, Su Wu, is gone, body and soul,
This temple survives, these trees endure....
Wildgeese through the clouds are still calling to the moon there
And hill-sheep unshepherded graze along the border.
...Returning, he found his country changed
Since with youthful cap and sword he had left it.
His bitter adventures had won him no title....
Autumn-waves endlessly sob in the river.

薛逢　宮詞 A PALACE POEM
十二樓中盡曉妝
望仙樓上望君王
鎖銜金獸連環冷
水滴銅龍晝漏長
云髻罷梳還對鏡
羅衣欲換更添香
遙窺正殿簾開處
袍褲宮人掃御床
In twelve chambers the ladies, decked for the day,
Peer afar for their lord from their Fairy-View Lodge;
The golden toad guards the lock on the door-chain,
And the bronze-dragon water-clock drips through the morning
Till one of them, tilting a mirror, combs her cloud of hair
And chooses new scent and a change of silk raiment;
For she sees, between screen-panels, deep in the palace,
Eunuchs in court-dress preparing a bed.

秦韜玉　貧女 A POOR GIRL
蓬門未識綺羅香
擬托良媒益自傷
誰愛風流高格調
共憐時世儉梳妝
敢將十指夸針巧
不把雙眉斗畫長
苦恨年年壓金線
為他人作嫁衣裳
Living under a thatch roof, never wearing fragrant silk,
She longs to arrange a marriage, but how could she dare?
Who would know her simple face the loveliest of them all
When we choose for worldliness, not for worth?
Her fingers embroider beyond compare,
But she cannot vie with painted brows;
And year after year she has sewn gold thread
On bridal robes for other girls.

沈全期　古意呈補闕喬知之 BEYOND SEEING
盧家少婦郁金香
海燕雙棲玳瑁梁
九月寒砧催木葉
十年征戍憶遼陽
白狼河北音書斷
丹鳳城南秋夜長
誰為含愁獨不見
更教明月照流黃
A girl of the Lu clan who lives in Golden-Wood Hall,
Where swallows perch in pairs on beams of tortoiseshell,
Hears the washing-mallets' cold beat shake the leaves down.
...The Liaoyang expedition will be gone ten years,
And messages are lost in the White Wolf River.
...Here in the City of the Red Phoenix autumn nights are long,
Where one who is heart-sick to see beyond seeing,
Sees only moonlight on the yellow-silk wave of her loom.