An Evening Meeting

Li Hai-ku

The right is the color of spring mists.
The lamp-flower falls,
And the flame bursts out brightly.
In the midst of the disorder of the dressing-table
Lies a black eye-stone.
A golden hairpin has fallen to the ground.
She leans against a screen,
Arch, coquettish, welcoming his arrival.
Then suddenly striking the strings of her table-lute,
She sings—
And her face is like rain whitening the Gorge of Witches
And like the bright busy movement of the Western Sea.