Page:The works of Li Po - Obata.djvu/164

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��95. THE NORTH WIND

The lamp-bearing dragon nestles over the polar gate,

And his light illumines the frigid zone.

For neither the sun nor the moon shines there,

But only the north wind comes, blowing and howling from heaven.

The snow-flakes of the Yen mountains are big like pil- lows,

They are blown down, myriads together, over the Hsuan- yuan palace.

'Tis December. Lo, the pensive maid of Yu-chow! She will not sing, she will not smile; her moth-eyebrows

are disheveled. She stands by the gate and watches the wayfarers

��Remembering him who snatched his sword and went to

save the borderland, Him who suffered bitterly in the cold beyond the Great

Wall, Him who fell in the battle and will never come

back.

In the tiger-striped gold case he left for her keeping There remains a pair of white-feathered arrows Amid the cobwebs and dust gathered of long years — Oh, empty tokens of love, too sad to look upon! She takes them out and burns them to ashes. [138]

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