感白发

When I first capped my hair, a youth of twenty years,

A single strand of white already did appear.

I wrote a rhapsody of several hundred words,

Mocking and scolding it as if in playful verse.

Now searching for that old composition of mine,

Not a single character can I recall.

It seems as if it were a dream, a fleeting sign,

Where traces of the past have vanished, one and all.

Only the threads upon my temples still remain,

So fine and dense, as if they could be woven plain.

The southern lands are flat and damp, the air is thick,

In prime of life, one often bears an aging look.

Now I have reached the age of forty-two, and quick,

How can I spare these darkening locks, on which I look?

I wash and comb, intending to pluck out the white,

But what's the use of hiding age, of futile spite?

Once dyed, they soon show specks of white again, it's true;

This saying I recall from a guest I once knew.

The scenery of human life is brief and fleet,

As sudden as the striking of a stone, complete.

This poem done is but the mumbling of a dream,

A sigh of feeling, from which no insight I glean.

The future self won't know the present, I surmise,

Just as the present self forgets what met the eyes.