Rivers

Song: South of the River (Picking Water Lilies) by unknown author

One voice with chorus accompanied by seven instruments

South of the River, one can pick lilies.

Lily pads, how pretty!

A fish plays among the leaves.

The fish plays on the east.

The fish plays on the west.

The fish plays on the south.

The fish plays on the north.*

*This poem talks about the lily leaves and does not mention the lily flower. These people feel like the fish.

In Response to Guo's poems on New Spring

With the same sounds, my best will barely please you.

The northern area at present so bitterly cold.

Eight generations of diminishing literature*: think revitalization.

Six emperors later broken dreams - regret decline.

Sweeping clean foreign dust: not hopeless. 

Burnt remains of the Ching fire**: worthy of attention.

Of the schools of poetry--West River--one surviving branch

will cause Watery Sea*** to roll in billows.

*Hanyu was a poet who came after eight dynasties and the saying goes that literature declined until he appeared on the scene.

**Ching fire can refer both to the remains of the Emporer Ching Sehuang (who built the Great Wall and Terracotta Soldiers) burning of scholars and books or the two-month blaze of his palace that was set by his successor.

***Name for Japan