“Over the mist the sun sets far off in heaven. Only the hills are red: field, hollow and lake are blue with shadow.

Now islands in the lake are black pearls set in amethyst. Now that wooded hill, a head of waving woman’s hair, is black. And see, a crescent comb of silver moon.

Sad and happy, I pick up my lute and sing until the stars grow pale.”

—Tsiang-Tien, from The Jade Flute: Chinese Poems in Prose, a Peter Pauper Press Book, published in 1960.