When I was little, I wore those nice bangs
Playing with wild flowers at the front door
You came on a bamboo stick horse
Rode around me and played those green plums
We were neighbors here in Chang2 An
Tow kids innocent and best friends

At 14 I was married to you
So shy I won’t even look up
At night I faced the wall
Even you called 1000 times

At 15 I opened up
Want to be with you like dusts and ashes
Prepared for death to do us apart
Won’t imagine longing for your return

At 16 you left for a long trip
Through the rapids of Yang4 Yu4
In May the turbulence are impossible
Monkeys' cry can be heard in heaven

Your footsteps of hesitation
At the front door, now covered with moss
Moss so thick I can’t clear them
Autumn seemed early with the falling leaves

In August butterflies came
In pairs they fluttered the west meadow
That just saddens me so much
I aged sitting here waiting

If you are coming back home
Do send a word first
Far I will go greet you
All the way to Shang2 Feng Sha

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the lookout?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fo-Sa.

-- Ezra Pound (1885-1972)