Evening Song Of Senlin

from Senlin: A Biography It is moonlight. Alone in the silence I ascend my stairs once more, While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, Crash on a white sand shore. It is moonlight. The garden is silent. I stand in my room alone. Across my wall, from the far-off moon, A rain of fire is thrown . . . There are houses hanging above the stars, And stars hung under a sea: And a wind from the long blue vault of time Waves my curtain for me . . . I wait in the dark once more, Swung between space and space: Before my mirror I lift my hands And face my remembered face. Is it I who stand in a question here, Asking to know my name? . . . It is I, yet I know not whither I go, Nor why, nor whence I came. It is I, who awoke at dawn And arose and descended the stair, Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun,— In a woman's hands and hair. It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones I builded into a wall: With a mournful melody in my brain Of a tune I cannot recall . . . There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss; And the sharp-pained shadow of death. I remember a rain-drop on my cheek,— A wind like a fragrant breath . . . And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven; And the heavens are dark and steep . . . I will forget these things once more In the silence of sleep.