THE SHE KING; OR, THE BOOK OF ANCIENT POETRY

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106 THE BOOK OP POETEY. [PART I.
The sight is fair. 0 dove, beware ;
Its fruits intoxicate.
Ah ! thou, young maiden, too wilt find
Cause for repentance deep,
If, by a lover's arts seduced,
Thyself thou fail to keep.
A gentleman who hastes to prove
The joys of lawless love,
For what is done may still atone ;
' To thee they'll fatal prove.
Thou'lt try in vain excuse to feign,
Lost like the foolish dove.
4 When sheds its leaves the mulberry tree,
All yellow on the ground,
And sear they lie. Such fate have I
Through my rash conduct found.
Three years with you in poverty
And struggles hard I've passed;
And now with carriage-curtains wet,
Through flooded K'e I haste.
I always was the same, but you
A double mind have shown.
'Tis you, Sir, base, the right transgress;
Your conduct I have known.
Aye changing with your moods of mind,
And reckless of rny moan.
5 Three years of life I was your wife,
And laboured in your house ;
I early rose, late sought repose,
And so fulfilled my vows.
I never did, one morning's space,
My willing work suspend,
But me thus cruelly you treat,
And from your dwelling send.
All this my brothers will not own,
, At me they'll only jeer,
And say I reap as I have sown ;
Reply they will not hear.
In heart I groan, and sad bemoan
My fate with many a tear.
BK V. v.] THE BOOK OP POETET. 107
6 Together were we to grow old ;—
Old now, you make me pine.
The K'e aye flows within its banks,
Its shores the lake confine.
But you know neither bank nor shore,
Your passions ne'er denied.
Back to my happy girlhood's time,
With hair in knot still tied,
I wildly go; I'll never know
Its smiles and chat again.
To me you clearly swore the faith,
Which now to break you're fain.
Could I foresee so false you'd be ?
And now regret is vain.
V.
The ChuJi Jtan; narrative. A DAUGHTER OP THE HOUSE Or WEI,
MAEEIBD IN ANOTHER STATE, EXPRESSES HEK LONGING TO REVISIT
WEI.
The argument of this ode is the same with that of iii. XIV.; but we
are not to suppose that the lady of the one is the same as that in the
other.
1 With long and tapering rods,
You angle in the K'e.
I think of you, dear friends,
Here far removed from Wei.
2 Ts'euen-yuen upon the left,
K'e on the right I view.
But married far away,
To home I bade adieu.
3 Those streams, this on the right,
That on the left, appear.
The laugh that shows your teeth,
Your tinkling gems, I hear.
4 I watch the cedar oars
On K'e, and boats of pine.
O might I travel there,
And soothe this heart of mine !