* * *

Li Bai

Phoenixes that play here once, so that the place was named for them,

Have abandoned it now to this desolated river;

The paths of Wu Palace are crooked with weeds;

The garments of Chin are ancient dust.

...Like this green horizon halving the Three Peaks,

Like this Island of White Egrets dividing the river,

A cloud has risen between the Light of Heaven and me,

To hide his city from my melancholy heart.

Moon over Mountain Pass 

All the birds have flown up and gone;

A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.

We never tire of looking at each other -

Only the mountain and I.

The birds have vanished down the sky.

Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains.