Groping for Fish: How Many More Storms Can I Endure?

In the jihai year of the Chunxi era, transferred from the Hubei grain commission to Hunan, my colleague Wang Zhengzhi set out wine at the Little Hill Pavilion, and I made this for him.

How much more can it bear—a few more rounds of wind and rain? In haste, spring goes away again. Loving the spring, I ever feared the flowers would open too soon; how much more now, when the fallen petals are past counting. Spring, I pray you, stay—they say the fragrant grass at the world's end cuts off the road of return. I resent that spring will not answer. I reckon there is only the spider's web beneath the painted eaves, all day long catching the drifting willow-down.

The affair of the Long Gate: the promised meeting was broken once again, for lovely brows have always drawn envy. Even if with a thousand pieces of gold I bought Xiangru's rhapsody, to whom could I pour out this deep feeling? Do not dance, my lord—do you not see that Yuhuan and Feiyan are both dust by now? Idle sorrow is the bitterest of all! Do not go to lean upon the high railing: the slanting sun is even now at the misty willows, at the heart-breaking place.