Nature

Hearing the Early Oriole (Written in Exile)

by Po Chü-i 772–846

Translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell (1921) · From Fir-Flower Tablets (1921)

Nature

The sun rose while I slept. I had not yet risen
When I heard an early oriole above the roof of my house.
Suddenly it was like the Royal Park at dawn,
With birds calling from the branches of the ten-thousand-year trees.
I thought of my time as a Court Official
When I was meticulous with my pencil in the Audience Hall.
At the height of Spring, in occasional moments of leisure,
I would look at the grass and growing things,
And at dawn and at dusk I would hear this sound.
Where do I hear it now?
In the lonely solitude of the City of Hsün Yang.
The bird's song is certainly the same,
The change is in the emotions of the man.
If I could only stop thinking that I am at the ends of the earth,
I wonder, would it be so different from the Palace after all?

MLA

Chü-i, Po. “Hearing the Early Oriole (Written in Exile).” Translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/po-chu-i/127/.

Chicago

Chü-i, Po. “Hearing the Early Oriole (Written in Exile).” Translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/po-chu-i/127/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Po Chü-i