Helen Jane Waddell Poems

How goes the night?
Midnight has still to come.
Down in the court the torch is blazing bright;
I hear far off the throbbing of the drum.
...

I see you with your bamboo rods
Go fishing up the K'e.
Fain would I rise and come to you,
And all day long I think of you,
...

I see on high the Milky Way,
But here's a rougher road.
The Sacred Oxen shining stand;
They do not draw our load.
...

I went out at the Eastern Gate,
I saw the girls in clouds,
Like clouds they were, and soft and bright,
...

The morning glory climbs above my head,
Pale flowers of white and purple, blue and red.
I am disquieted.
...

The rushes on the marsh are green,
And in the wind they bend.
I saw a woman walking there,
...

The tribulus grows on the wall,
Upon the stain.
The things done in that inner room
Men cannot name.
...

The K'e still ripples to its banks,
The moorfowl cry.
My hair was gathered in a knot,
And you came by.
...

Ah, let it drift, that boat of cypress wood,
There in the middle of the Ho.
He was my mate,
And until death I will go desolate.
...

At last the sun is set.
Fill up, fill up the cups of jade,
The night's before us yet!
...