The place where a rill, babbling old tales,
Meanders on eastward toward the end
of a broad plain
And a mottled bull ox lows
In dusk's plaintive tones
of golden indolence-
Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?
The place where ashes grow cold in a clay brazier
While over empty fields the sound of the night wind
drives the horses
And our aged father, overcome with drowsiness,
Props his straw pillow-
Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?
The place where I got drenched
in the rank weeds' dew,
Searching for an arrow recklessly shot
In the yearning of my earth-bred heart
For the sky's lustrous blue-
Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?
The place where little sister, dark earlocks
Flying like night waves dancing in a fairy-tale sea,
And my wife, not pretty but passable
and all the year barefoot,
Bent their backs to the sun's tingling rays and
gleaned ears of grain-
Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?
The place where sprinkled stars
wend their way in the sky
Toward sand castles just beyond our ken,
While beneath drab roofs,
hoary crows cawing past,
People sit, softly murmuring,
round the faint firelight-
Could it ever be forgotten, even in one's dreams?