Who Says Sorrows Have Discarded Me Long? Poem by East Sea Fairy Xing Yi

By OUYANG Xiu

Who says sorrows
have discarded me for a long time?
Just as before, my dreary glumness grows
whenever comes spring's prime.
From night to daytime
I get blotto and lie with woes
under the blooming trees, in the slime,
considering not at all that the mirror shows
that my face wanes without glows

The grass at riverside
grows emerald green, and shady is the willow.
With nobody beside,
Looking at the yonder dim moon-lit wood shadow,
oh,
Standing on the bridge when gusts of wind blow,
facing my very ego,
I question desolately: how so?
what the hell haunts me every year with new woe?