TO LY-Y-HANE

Chinese Poetess, 12th Century A. D.⁠[1]

Once I heard a singing wind,
Across a still lagoon,
I thought a thousand bells of jade
Were swinging in the moon.
And once, I felt soft petals
Fall from a flowering quince,
And trembled when I half divined
Your song, that died long since.
Above the dread and somber beat
Of mighty, dragon wings,
Perhaps my quiet heart will hear
Your lute of silver strings.

[1]

LY-Y-HANE

Ly-y-Hane lived during the Song Dynasty, in the 12th century of our era. She is admired, not only as a clever and graceful composer of verses, but as a superior intellect and a true scholar, accustomed to all the minutiae and intricacies of the art of poetry.

The incurable wound of her heart, bleeding in solitude, is practically the only subject with which she deals.

As far as can be known, the love that devours this Chinese Sappho is ignored by him who inspires it.

One might say she was a flower become enamoured of a bird. The changing seasons are the only events, the objects that adorn her home the only evidences of a life consecrated to the expression of a single sentiment.

She lived entombed with her suffering, hoping never to be deprived of it or cured, and she named in advance the volume that posterity would perhaps collect of all her scattered verses: “The Debris of My Heart.”

From The Book of Jade.
(Translated by James Whittall.)