My love
T’ai Wang-Shu

I shall tell you about my love.
My love is a timid person.
Her face is as the bloom upon a peach,
With peach-flushed lips and a sky-coloured heart.

She has big black eyes which dare not gaze upon me,
Not that they dare not, but because she’s timid;
And when I lay my head on her light breast
You would say the colour of her eyes was changed,
Transmuted into sky, her heart’s own hue.

She has slender hands to soothe me when I’m sad,
A clear cool voice, and there is magic in it:
A voice which only utters tender words—
So tender as to melt my heart away.
A quiet, graceful girl,
With all the science of reciprocation—
Her name I’ll never tell
Because my love is timid.