two poems by li shangyin

NOTE ON A RAINY NIGHT TO A FRIEND IN THE NORTH

You ask me when I am coming. I do not know.
I dream of your mountains and autumn pools brimming all night with the rain.
Oh, when shall we be trimming wicks again, together in your western window?
When shall I be hearing your voice again, all night in the rain?

THE JADE POOL

The Mother of Heaven, in her window by the Jade Pool,
Hears The Yellow Bamboo Song shaking the whole earth.
Where is Emperor Mu, with his eight horses running
Ten thousand miles a day? Why has he never come back?

Li Shangyin

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distance

Yuichiro Miyano

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towards yearning

The element at bottom is cloth. The element on top was originally two sets of intersecting lines. The combination indicates a long piece of fabric with fine cross-stitches. Scarce and rare are associated meanings, via "fine." Desire is an extended meaning, in the sense of a longstanding desire of a kind rarely obtained.

adds sun/day to suggest the drying out of a cloth by means of exposure to the sun. Thus the meaning dry out.



adds eye to suggest "gaze at a fine, dimly visible object." Yearn for is an associated meaning (yearn for something far off, dimly visible).










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