Clearing at Dawn

Clearing at Dawn by Li Bai, translated by Arthur Waley

From Translations from the Chinese (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1919, 1941).

The fields are chill, the sparse rain has stopped;
The colours of spring team on every side.
With leaping fish the blue pond is full;
With singing thrushes the green boughs droop.
The flowers of the fields have dabbled their powdered cheeks;
The mountain grasses are bent level at the waste.
By the bamboo stream the last fragment of cloud
Blown by the wind slowly scatters away.