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Memories with the Dusk Return

by Li Po (Li Bai)
Translated by L. Cranmer-Byng (1909) · From A Lute of Jade (1909)

The yellow dusk winds round the city wall;
      The crows are drawn to nest,
      Silently down the west
They hasten home, and from the branches call.
A woman sits and weaves with fingers deft
   Her story of the flower-lit stream,
   Threading the jasper gauze in dream,
Till like faint smoke it dies; and she, bereft,
   Recalls the parting words that died
Under the casement some far eventide,
   And stays the disappointed loom,
   While from the little lonely room
   Into the lonely night she peers,
And, like the rain, unheeded fall her tears.

This poem and this translation are in the public domain. Source text: Project Gutenberg.

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