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547. «Around the bend of the Yalu…»[244]
A field of wild iris, that few people know about.
548. «We sailed in a small river boat…»
A grey town, full of people very busy living.
549. «Ching-pu is an elderly man and all his chores are completed…»
Watching the river boats, having nothing else to do.
550. «Your gate is heavy, strong, and always barred…»[245]
Some are closed, and some are open;
I like the latter.
551. «The white sands on the sloping shore of the river…»
He was almost as old as the river,
and he made more noise than the river itself
552. «It was a lazy summer noon, as I sat in the stern of a flat-bottomed boat…»[246]
The blue parasol may have been becoming.
I do not know; I hope it was.
553. «He was a shepherd and he spent his hours…»[247]
A person encountered in the Western I lills near
Beitsing
244
Yalu: a river.
245
With a notation in the manuscript: «kai-meng-de' is Chinese for 'gatekeeper.»
246
Variant in the second line of the last stanza in the manuscript: «swiftly dividing the rushes with the sharp prow of your boat.» Sun-Hwa-kiang: Songhuajiang in the contemporary transcription, the Sungari River; see note on poem 327.
247
For the Western Hills see note on poem 471. «Have you had your rice?» i.e., «Have you eaten?» is a traditional polite enquiry in China.