Read 13 ci poems with pinyin and English translations. Notes record textual variants and differing attributions where relevant.
Su Shi
I have always envied the jade-carved youth of the world, to whom Heaven allotted this maiden soft as cream. All say that her pure song comes forth from teeth of white; the wind rises, the snow flies — the burning sea turns cool.
Su Shi
The great river flows east; its waves have washed away all the gallant men of a thousand ages.
Su Shi
Light floods the wide, shallow ripples; across the sky, faint layer upon layer of cloud. The mud-guard not yet loosed, my jade-gray horse is restive — I would lie drunk upon the fragrant grass.
Su Shi
Drinking at Dongpo by night: sober, then drunk again; coming home, it seemed about the third watch. The serving boy's breathing is like thunder; I knock, and no one answers — I lean upon my staff and listen to the river's sound.
Su Shi
Pay no heed to the sound that beats through the forest and strikes the leaves — why not chant and whistle, and walk slowly on? Bamboo staff, straw sandals: lighter than a horse. Who is afraid? In one cloak of coir, I will take the misty rain for the whole of my life.
Su Shi
A waning moon hangs in the sparse paulownia; the water-clock is stilled, and all is quiet at last. Who sees the hermit walking to and fro alone, the faint shadow of a lone wild goose?
Su Shi
Skin of ice, bones of jade: naturally cool, without a trace of sweat. The wind comes into the waterside hall, and a hidden fragrance fills it. The embroidered curtain opens, and one spot of bright moon peeps in upon the sleeper: she has not yet slept, but lies pillowed aslant, the hairpin fallen and her hair in disorder.
Su Shi
Let an old man show a young man's wildness for once: on the left hand leading a yellow hound, on the right bearing a gray falcon; a brocade hat and a sable coat, and a thousand riders sweeping over the flat ridge. To repay the whole city that follows its governor, let me myself shoot the tiger, and show you a Sun Quan.
Su Shi
Ten years now, the living and the dead, both far away and lost to sight; not thinking of it, and yet never forgetting. A thousand li away, a lonely grave — nowhere to speak of my desolation. Even should we meet, you would not know me: dust upon my face, and hair like frost.
Su Shi
The blossoms have shed their last red, and the green apricots are small. When the swallows fly, the green water circles round the houses of men. Upon the branches, the willow catkins are blown fewer and fewer — yet under all heaven where is there no fragrant grass?
Su Shi
Moonlight like frost, good wind like water, the clear scene without bound. In the winding harbor the fish leap; round lotus leaves spill their dew; in the loneliness no one is to be seen. The drum sounds the third watch; a single leaf falls with a clang; the dark dream-cloud is startled and broken. Vast is the night; I seek the dream again but cannot find it; awake, I walk all round the small garden.
Su Shi
At the foot of the hill, young orchid shoots lie soaked in the brook; the sandy path among the pines is clean and free of mud; in the soughing evening rain the cuckoo cries.
Su Shi
Rustling, the date blossoms fall on head-cloth and coat; north and south of the village the reeling-wheels hum; beside an old willow, in a cloak of straw, someone sells cucumbers.
