Page:Gems of Chinese literature (1922).djvu/169

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PŎ CHÜ-YI
147

bamboos. Day and night no sounds reach my ears save the blood-stained note of the goatsucker,[1] the gibbon's mournful wail. Hill songs I have, and village pipes with their harsh discordant twang. But now that I listen to thy lute’s discourse, methinks ’tis the music of the Gods. Prithee sit down awhile and sing to us yet again, while I commit thy story to writing.”

Grateful to me (for she had been standing long), the lute-girl sat down and quickly broke forth into another song, sad and soft, unlike the song of just now. Then all her hearers melted into tears unrestrained; and none flowed more freely than mine, until my bosom was wet with weeping.


  1. Or nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus).