e eaves. Red pomegranate and white lotus
cluster on the steps of the pond. All is after this pattern, though I
cannot here name each delight. Whenever I come here alone, I am moved to
prolong my stay to ten days; for of the things that have all my life
most pleased me, not one is missing. So that not only do I forget to go
back, but would gladly end my days here. This is my third consolation.

Remembering that not having had news of me for so long, you might be in
some anxiety with regard to me, I have hastened to set your mind at rest
by recording these three consolations. What else I have to tell shall be
set out in due order, as follows....[7]

Wei-chih, Wei-chih! The night I wrote this letter I was sitting at the
mountain-window of my thatched hut. I let my brush run as my hand willed
and wrote at hazard as my thoughts came. When I folded it and addressed
it, I found that dawn had come. I raised my head and saw only a few
mountain-priests, some sitting, some sleeping. I heard the mournful
cries of mountain apes and the sad twitterings of valley birds. O friend
of all my life, parted from me by a thousand leagues, at such times as
this "dim thoughts of the World"[8] creep upon me for a while; so,
following my ancient custom, I send you these three couplets:

_I remember how once I wrote you a letter sitting in the Palace at
night,
At the back of the Hall of Golden Bells, when dawn was coming in the
sky.
This night I fold your letter--in what place?
Sitting in a cottage on Lu Shan, by the light of a late lamp.
The caged bird and fettered ape are neither of them dead yet;
In the world of men face to face will they ever meet again?_

O Wei-chih, Wei-chih! This night, this heart--do you know them or not?
Lo-t`ien bows his head.

[1] Other name of Po Chuu-i.

[2] Other name of Yuuan Chen1.

[3] The extreme North and South of China.

[4] A poet, several of whose short poems are well-known.

[5] The son of Po Chuu-i`s uncle Po Ch`i-k`ang.

[6] A famous mountain near Kiu-kiang.

[7] What followed is omitted in the printed text.

[8] This expression is used by Yuuan Chen1 in a poem addressed to Po
Chuu-i. By "the World," he means their life together at Court.

[34] HEARING THE EARLY ORIOLE

[_Written in exile_]

When the sun rose I was still lying in bed;
An early oriole sang on the roof of my house.
For a moment I thought of the Royal Park at daw