A song of white snow in farewell to field-clerk Wu going home
Cen Can
The north wind rolls the white grasses and breaks them;
And the Eighth-month snow across the Tartar sky
Is like a spring gale,come up in the night,
Blowing open the petals of ten thousand peartrees.
It enters the pearl blinds,it wets the silk curtains;
A fur coat feels cold,a cotton mat flimsy;
Bows become rigid,can hardly be drawn
And the metal of armour congeals on the men;
The sand-sea deepens with fathomless ice,
And darkness masses its endless clouds;
But we drink to our guest bound home from camp,
And play him barbarian lutes,guitars,harps;
Till at dusk,when the drifts are crushing our tents
And our frozen red flags cannot flutter in the wind,
We watch him through Wheel-Tower Gate going eastward.
Into the snow-mounds of Heaven-Peak Road.
And then he disappears at the turn of the pass,
Leaving behind him only hoof-prints.