While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead <br />I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. <br />You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, <br />You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. <br />And we went on living in the village of Chokan: <br />Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. <br />At fourteen I married My Lord you. <br />I never laughed, being bashful. <br />Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. <br />Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back. <br /> <br />At fifteen I stopped scowling, <br />I desired my dust to be mingled with yours <br />Forever and forever and forever. <br />Why should I climb the look out? <br /> <br />At sixteen you departed, <br />You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies, <br />And you have been gone five months. <br />The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead. <br /> <br />You dragged your feet when you went out. <br />By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, <br />Too deep to clear them away! <br />The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. <br />The paired butterflies are already yellow with August <br />Over the grass in the West garden; <br />They hurt me. I grow older. <br />If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang, <br />Please let me know beforehand, <br />And I will come out to meet you <br />As far as Cho-fu-Sa.<br /><br />Li Po<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-river-merchant-s-wife-2/
