Journal Entry 1 Built this palace, standing in

Ruins beside the cliffs? There are

A River -Merchant’s Wife: A Letter Green ghost fires in the black rooms.
By Li Po The shattered pavements are all
While my hair was still cut straight across my Washed away Ten thousand organ
forehead Pipes whistle and roar. The storm
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. Scatters the red autumn leaves.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, His dancing girls are yellow dust.
You walked about my seat, playing with blue Their painted cheeks have crumbled
plums. Away His gold chariots
And we went on living in the village of Chōkan: And courtiers are gone. Only
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. A stone horse is left of his
At fourteen I married My Lord you. Glory I sit on the grass and
I never laughed, being bashful. Start a poem, but the pathos of
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. It overcomes me. The future
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked Slips imperceptibly away
back. Who can say what the years will bring?

At fifteen I stopped scowling,

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out? A Song of An Autumn Night

At sixteen you departed By Wang Wei

You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of
swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the
different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with
August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of
the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō-fū-Sa.
“The River-Merchant's Wife”
Under the crescent moon a light
autumn dew
Has chilled the robe she will not change
—
And she touches a silver lute all night,
Afraid to go back to her empty room.
Unlike traditional English language
poetic constraints, which are generally
confined to rhyme, meter, and genre
type, Tang poets always composed
within grids that dictated a set word-
syllable count (generally either five or
seven per line all words were of one
syllable), the allowable number of lines,
the required ...

By r Li Po

Jade Flower Palace

By Tu Fu
The stream swirls The wind moans in
The pines. Gray rats scurry over
Broken tiles What prince, long ago,