The sounds of insects and trees have all changed,
I know the fleeting years have secretly shifted.
The sun crow and moon hare rush like arrows,
Autumn light gradually enters the reed-flower shore.
Reed flowers are white, knotweed flowers are red,
Wild geese crouch and huddle, filling the reed thickets.
Peonies and crabapples are as if in a dream,
Lotus fragrance scatters, the pond pavilion is empty.
The years of human life pass like flowing water,
Swallows leave, orioles return—a mere snap of the fingers.
Stars and frost grind down the heart of a Taoist,
Everywhere I look, worldly people swarm like ants.
Feeling the present, sighing for the past brings sorrow;
Then I know Song Yu was not truly mourning autumn.
Rivers and mountains, purple and green, farewell Han and Tang,
Scenery and things no longer pursue Shang and Zhou.
The ancients, muddled, gone and not returning,
Modern people, bustling, who knows their limits?
The ancients pitied the present, the present pities the ancients,
In the sunset's shadow, cloud shadows scatter in chaos.
This body drifts like wandering dust,
Flesh, hair, and skin all belong to others.
Only a square inch of heart still governs joy and anger,
Not daring to leak it out, lest Heaven's Lord be angered.
Past joys and pleasures have turned to desolation,
Who will share my sighs and pity this bleakness?
Surely I know the causes of sorrow, joy, meeting, parting;
In this world, indeed, there is no Yangzhou crane.
What can be grieved is poverty and loneliness,
Looking in the mirror, I laugh at my own thinness and purity.
How can nine out of ten things go as one wishes?
Fixed fate—can man ever surpass it?
The autumn wind rises, the autumn water turns cold,
The autumn heart grieves, the autumn mood turns sour.
The fair one gone, never to return again,
Gazing at my shadow, I pass this time with difficulty.
This heart, desolate, is the autumn night's moon,
Its lonely light scatters into the vast, cold expanse.
Deep in the night, the moon sets, no one knows,
On the river, an old fisherman casts his net in vain.
I cannot bear to raise this before a sorrowful man,
It would make him weep till liver and intestines split.
Who will tune the plain lute for me?
Layer upon layer, write out my solitary feelings for me.
So that ghosts and spirits may weep with him,
Mountains empty, trees cold, wind soughs desolate.