A Wife Mourns For Her Husband

written by


« Reload image

The dolichos grows and covers the thorn,
  O'er the waste is the dragon-plant creeping.
  The man of my heart is away and I mourn--
  What home have I, lonely and weeping?

  Covering the jujubes the dolichos grows,
  The graves many dragon-plants cover;
  But where is the man on whose breast I'd repose?
  No home have I, having no lover!

  Fair to see was the pillow of horn,
  And fair the bed-chamber's adorning;
  But the man of my heart is not here, and I mourn
  All alone, and wait for the morning.

  While the long days of summer pass over my head,
  And long winter nights leave their traces,
  I'm alone! Till a hundred of years shall have fled,
  And then I shall meet his embraces.

  Through the long winter nights I am burdened with fears,
  Through the long summer days I am lonely;
  But when time shall have counted its hundreds of years
  I then shall be his--and his only!

© Confucius