A Lament in the Ch'u Mode

Dark and distant is the Way of Heaven,

The Spirits shrouded in obscurity.

Since childhood I have tried to do right.

The best I could, thesc fifty-four years.

At twenty I met with troubled times,when thirty I lost my first wife;

More than once bright fire burned down my house,

Weevils had their way with the grain I grew,

Wind and rain came from every quarter

And the yield would not sufice a single man.

Through summer days we often bore our hunger,

Winter nights we slept without covers;

In the evening we would long for cockcrow,

At dawn we prayed the crow would quickly cross.

It is my own doing, no fault of Heaven,

That griefand trouble embitter my life.

Alas, a name left to posterity

Is no more to me than foating mist.

With deep feeling I sing my lonely song

Chung 'T'zu-ch'i in truth was a good man.