When I was almost forty
I had a daughter whose name was Golden Bells.
Now it is just a year since she was born;
She is learning to sit and cannot yet talk.
Ashamed-to find that I have not a sage-s heart:
Henceforward I am tied to things outside myself:
My only reward-the pleasure I am getting now.
If I am spared the grief of her dying young,
Then I shall have the trouble of getting her married.
My plan for retiring and going back to the hills
Must now be postponed for fifteen years!
Golden Bells
Bai Juyi
(1)
Poem topics: daughter, grief, heart, pleasure, young, year, talk, plan, golden, trouble, reward, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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