The Mind

The Secret Land

by Yüan Mei 18th century AD

Translated by L. Cranmer-Byng (1916) · From A Feast of Lanterns (1916)

The Mind

The flower fairies bring
Their playmate Spring,
But the Spring goes
And takes no rose.
She breaks all hearts
To incense and departs.

The river fain would keep
One cloud upon its breast
Of the twilight flocks that sweep
Like red flamingoes fading west,
Away, away,
To build beyond the day.

Give me the green gloom of a lofty tree,
Leaf and bough to shutter and bar
My dream of the world that ought to be
From the drifting ghosts of the things that are.

Mine is a secret land where Spring
And sunset clouds cease wandering.

MLA

Mei, Yüan. “The Secret Land.” Translated by L. Cranmer-Byng. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/yuan-mei/5/.

Chicago

Mei, Yüan. “The Secret Land.” Translated by L. Cranmer-Byng. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/yuan-mei/5/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Yüan Mei