Seven, Stone Tiger Lane
Hsü Chih-mo

There are times when our little courtyard
ripples with infinite tenderness:
Winsome wisteria, bosom bared,
invites the caress of persimmon leaves,
From his hundred-foot height the sophora
stoops in the breeze to embrace the wild apple,
The yellow dog by the fence watches over
his little friend Amber, fast asleep,
The birds sing their latest mating songs,
trilling on without cease—
There are times when our little courtyard
ripples with infinite tenderness.

There are times when our little courtyard
shades in the setting of a dream:
Across the green shadows the haze after rain
weaves a sealed and silent darkness,
Facing my fading orchids, a single squatting frog
listens out for the cry of a worm in the next garden.
A weary raincloud, still unspent,
stretches above the sophora’s top,
That circling flutter before the eaves—
is it a bat or a dragonfly?
There are times when our little courtyard
shades in the setting of a dream.

There are times when our little courtyard
can only respond with a sign:
A sigh for the times of storm,
when countless red blossoms are pounded and pulped by the rain,
A sign for the early autumn,
when leaves still green fret free with regret from the branch,
A sign for the still of night,
when the moon has boarded her cloud-bark, over the west wall now,
And the wind carries a dirge for a passing,
cold gusts from a distant lane—
There are times when our little courtyard
can only respond with a sign.

There are times when our little courtyard
is inundated with joy;
In the dusk, after rain, the garden
is shaded, fragrant, and cool,
Old Pegleg, the toper, clutches his great jar,
his bad leg pointing to the sky,
And drains his cup, a pint, a quart,
till warmth of wine fills heart and cheeks,
A mythical Bacchus-figure,
swept along on the bubbling of laughter—
There are times when our little courtyard
is inundated with joy.