Page:A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1919).djvu/215

RELEASING A MIGRANT "YEN" [WILD-GOOSE]

At Nine Rivers,^[1] in the tenth year,^[2] in winter,— heavy snow;
The river-water covered with ice and the forests broken with their load.^[3]
The birds of the air, hungry and cold, went flying east and west;
And with them flew a migrant "yen," loudly clamouring for food.
Among the snow it pecked for grass; and rested on the surface of the ice:
It tried with its wings to scale the sky; but its tired flight was slow.
The boys of the river spread a net and caught the bird as it flew;
They took it in their hands to the city-market and sold it there alive.
I that was once a man of the North am now an exile here:
Bird and man, in their different kind, are each strangers in the south.
And because the sight of an exiled bird wounded an exile's heart,
I paid your ransom and set you free, and you flew away to the clouds.

1. Kiukiang, the poet's place of exile.
2. A. D. 815. His first winter at Kiukiang.
3. By the weight of snow.

 

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