[2] PROSE LETTER

_To the Bachelor-of-Arts P‘ei Ti_


Of late during the sacrificial month, the weather has been calm and
clear, and I might easily have crossed the mountain. But I knew that you
were conning the classics and did not dare disturb you. So I roamed
about the mountain-side, rested at the Kan-p‘ei Temple, dined with the
mountain priests, and, after dinner, came home again. Going northwards,
I crossed the Yüan-pa, over whose waters the unclouded moon shone with
dazzling rim. When night was far advanced, I mounted Hua-tzü’s Hill and
saw the moonlight tossed up and thrown down by the jostling waves of
Wang River. On the wintry mountain distant lights twinkled and vanished;
in some deep lane beyond the forest a dog barked at the cold, with a cry
as fierce as a wolf’s. The sound of villagers grinding their corn at
night filled the gaps between the slow chiming of a distant bell.

Now I am sitting alone. I listen, but cannot hear my grooms and servants
move or speak. I think much of old days: how hand in hand, composing
poems as we went, we walked down twisting paths to the banks of clear
streams.

We must wait for Spring to come: till the grasses sprout and the trees
bloom. Then wandering together in the spring hills we shall see the
trout leap lightly from the stream, the white gulls stretch their wings,