Drinking Alone By Moonlight (Extract)

In the third month the town of Hsien-yang

Is thick-spread with a carpet of fallen flowers. 

Who in Spring can bear to grieve alone? 

Who, sober, look on sights like these? 

Riches and Poverty, long or short life, 

By the Maker of Things are portioned and disposed; 

But a cup of wine levels life and death 

And a thousand things obstinately hard to prove. 

When I am drunk, I lose Heaven and Earth. 

Motionless—I cleave to my lonely bed. 

At last I forget that I exist at all, 

And at that moment my joy is great indeed.