I recall when you first fell ill, in haste I came to your bed.
I knew it was the cold that struck, your legs numb, left shoulder dead.
Master Jiang's elixir divine, in three days you could bend and stretch.
In five, you stood with a cane's aid, in ten, you took a timid step.
In those days we met often, talking for joy, never tired.
Tea sipped from a brimming cup, poems revised, a scroll entire.
You too doubted the need for cure, thought spring's warmth could bring delight.
Immortal peaches bloom most red, to tread Tiantai's peak in shared flight.
Worries piled high like mountains, kept your mind from peace and rest.
The lingering illness thus remained, clogging your gut, a stubborn guest.
A monk from Yue had potent drugs, from his case leftovers came.
You took them, sweat poured like torrents, all matters eastward flowed the same.
Your weeping wife lacks a whole skirt, frail son still mourns like a young deer.
Poets by custom suffer want, in death's poor state, you're more dear.
You were like autumn's withered grass, not a single day of good health seen.
Roots assailed by frost and hail, why did you wither, frail and lean?
I weep for you, the sun grows dim; I think of you, moonlight on the bed.
Still I doubt that you have died, then startle, nearly lose my head.
Just yesterday, before you fell ill, we visited day after day.
By sunny window, spring-cut rushes; by cold stove, chestnuts warmed at night we'd lay.
On stone steps, amidst the moss, your former footprints still remain.
My anxious heart finds no repose, no dream brings us together again.
Your verse was like Jia Dao's, strong brushwork wrought with heaven's art.
Once praised by men of former times, now treasured close to every heart.
Clouds veil the stone peak, a burial place; friends' counsel chose this ground.
We must seek a high official's epitaph, hard to see the mountain man's name found.
All my life, with Weng and Xu, south they went, long without word.
I know not, when they hear this news, how their tears and sobs will be stirred.
I write by pond, mist and water dusk, as if on West River's road.
Vain talk of a Chu recluse's call, in the end, Xiang's elegy's heavy load.