Page:A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919).djvu/113

 There is no way to preserve life. Drugs of Immortality are instruments of folly. I would gladly wander in Paradise, But it is far away and there is no road. Since the day that I was joined to you We have shared all our joys and pains. While you rested in the shade, I left you a while: But till the end we shall be together. Our joint existence is impermanent: Sadly together we shall slip away. That when the body decays Fame should also go Is a thought unendurable, burning the heart. Let us strive and labour while yet we may To do some deed that men will praise. Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow, But how compare it with lasting Fame?

God can only set in motion: He cannot control the things he has made. Man, the second of the Three Orders, Owes his precedence to Me. Though I am different from you, We were born involved in one another: Nor by any means can we escape The intimate sharing of good and ill. The Three Emperors were saintly men, Yet to-day — where are they? P'ēng lived to a great age,