The Jade Mountain/A Political Prisoner Listening to a Cicada
Lo Ping-wang
王賓駱
A POLITICAL PRISONER LISTENING TO A CICADA
While the year sinks westward, I hear a cicada
Bid me to be resolute here in my cell,
Yet it needed the song of those black wings
To break a white-haired prisoner's heart. . . .
His flight is heavy through the fog,
His pure voice drowns in the windy world.
Who knows if he be singing still?—
Who listens any more to me?
Bid me to be resolute here in my cell,
Yet it needed the song of those black wings
To break a white-haired prisoner's heart. . . .
His flight is heavy through the fog,
His pure voice drowns in the windy world.
Who knows if he be singing still?—
Who listens any more to me?
(58, 44)