The Warning Voice (65 page)

I can smell the enveloping perfume
of her cincture from fragrant stalks of asarum twined,

See the dazzle of her dress
gleaming with moon-jade ouches, fretted and lined.

I'll strew the altar with lily-of-the-valley leaves
and have waterlilies for lamps fed with orchid oil,

And in chalices cunningly fashioned from calabash
pour rarest metheglin flavoured with pennyroyal.

As I fasten my gaze on the clouds
methinks I see a faint glimmer of her face;

As I strain my ear on the silence
I seem to hear a faint echo of her voice.

But she, on a tryst with eternity, brooking no coarctation
has abandoned me, cruel, here in the dust to lie,

Calling on Windlord in vain to drive me up after her
to ride side by side with her across the sky.

My heart is all wracked with teen
yet it boots not to weep and wail:

You are gone now to your long sleep
against Nature's order no power on earth can prevail.

In the grave-vault secure you rest
the bourne after which there is no more transformation.

But to me still in bonds in this hateful wen below
O Spirit, succouring come for my consolation!

O Spirit, come and abide for my consolation!

But what though she is present in this place? She is girt about with silence; she is veiled in a mist of invisibility; I cannot see her:

Only the green wreathed creepers that make her side-screens,
And the ranks of tall bullrushes, her guardsmen's spears.
The sleepy willow-buds waken as she approaches;
And the bitter lotus-seeds sweeten as she nears.
The White Virgin waits for her on cliffs of cassia;
From Orchid Island the water-sprite comes to greet her.
Jade-player plays for her on a little organ,
And Cold-keys sweeps the iron spine with his metal beater.
The God of the Mid Peak's consort comes at her bidding;
The crone of Li Mountain is summoned forth to meet her.
The Luo River turtle brings her his magic offering;
To the heavenly music wild beasts gambol and prance.
In the deeps of Red River the dragons are humming the melody;
And in pearl-tree groves the Birds of Paradise dance.

Seeing my reverence and my devoutness of heart (notwithstanding that I have neither vessels of gold nor vessels of bronze in which to make my offering) she drove forth her chariot from the City of Sunrise to meet me; but even now her banners are returning to the Garden of Night. For a little moment it seemed that the invisible would become visible; but murky vapours rose up suddenly between us and we were cut off.