THE POET DESOLATE.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 27

THE POET DESOLATE.

(From the Chinese of Yang-M.) The sky has a glimmer of rain and the turbulent wind Bruises the flowers of my jasmine wIUi fingers unkind. And tears my paeony petals and-rattles my blind. From my sweetheart the glimmering sky and the sundering sea And the white, unsurpassable mountains separate tne — Ah. if those birds could but carry my letter* to thee! Bear to her rcet on thy bosom, my murmuring stream, Those wind-scattered paeony-petals, loreladen, agleam, For perchance she may walk by thy waters, remember, and dream. My magnolia shines in the gathering shadows of night. The glors of its leafage reflecting the amorous light Of the moon, like the first of its flowers, enormous and white. There were times when the spell of such beauty had moved mc to play And t.ing till the emulous nightingale echoed my lay ; But tny song and my lute are both silent siDe? she is away.