Water Dragon Chant: Passing the Twin-Stream Tower at Nanjian

I lift my head to the floating clouds of the northwest; to prop the sky for ten thousand li one needs a long sword. They say that at this spot, deep in the night, one may often see the light of the Southern Dipper and the Ox lunar mansions. I feel the hills run high, the pool lies empty and its water cold, the moon is bright and the stars are pale. I would burn a rhinoceros horn and look below, but leaning on the railing I am afraid: the wind and thunder are angry, the fish and dragons are grim.

The gorge confines the gray river, the cliffs rising face to face; past the high tower they would fly, and still draw back. Yuanlong is grown old! There is no harm in lying high, with a jug of ice and a cool mat of bamboo. A thousand years of rising and falling, a hundred years of weeping and laughter, all taken in at a single climb. Who is it that has just lowered a lone sail beside the sandy shore and tied a mooring rope in the slanting sun?