Have you not seen the Nine Splendors Hall in the Yichun Park,
Its soaring pavilions linked straight as hair?
The bright sun fully fills the vermilion bird windows,
Flowing clouds half enter the azure dragon gate.
Palace maidens with nothing to do at night,
Learn to play the flute like phoenixes, making clear music.
Beaded curtains rolled north await cool breeze,
Embroidered doors open south toward the bright moon.
Suddenly, word comes the emperor remembers the moth-eyebrowed one,
A jeweled phoenix carries flowers between two hornless dragons.
Messages gallop, the golden chamber opens,
Jade pendants tinkling along the road, up the jade steps.
In Everlasting Joy's crimson court, a feast in splendid chambers,
Three thousand beauties trailing brocade like flowers.
Before lamps, smiling, they change into silk robes,
Within curtains, receiving favor, offering jade pillows.
Unexpectedly, the lord's heart turns midway,
Seeking immortality, building a Terrace Gazing at Immortals.
Through jeweled forbidden gates, longing from afar,
Purple-green cliff rooms shut tight by day.
Wishing to plant peach fruits in the mortal world,
First seek Penglai beneath the sea.
Penglai can be sought but not ascended,
A lone boat drifts vaguely, who knows where?
A plate of gold, a stem of bronze,
Holding up white dew in the blue sky's palm.
The Queen Mother, radiant, moved by your intent,
Cloud chariots and feather banners prepare to welcome.
Before the Feilian Temple, empty longing and regret,
Young Lord, why must you err?
One morning buried in the fields of Maoling,
Your lowly concubine's moth eyebrows no longer regarded.
The palace carriage departs late toward South Mountain,
Immortal guards winding away, never to return.
Morning and dusk weeping before the kylin tree,
Beneath it, green moss daily grows more mottled.
A life of a hundred years, the night nearly half gone,
Facing wine, sing long, do not long sigh.
Well knowing the bright sun cannot be privately owned,
One death, one life—what's there to calculate?