English中文
Partridge Sky: The Osmanthus
暗淡轻黄体性柔，
情疏迹远只香留。
何须浅碧深红色，
自是花中第一流。
Dim and pale, a light yellow, its nature soft and mild; far in feeling, far in trace, only its fragrance stays behind. What need has it of pale green or deep crimson? Of itself it is the first rank among flowers.
梅定妒，
菊应羞。
画阑开处冠中秋。
骚人可煞无情思，
何事当年不见收。
The plum must surely envy, the chrysanthemum be ashamed; where it opens by the painted railing it crowns the mid-autumn. Could the poet have been so lacking in feeling — why was it not gathered into his songs of old?
Reading notes
深红 also appears as 轻红. 可煞, read kě shà, gives the closing question its rhetorical force.