Tai Qian

PALLBEARER'S SONG

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Wild grass, how vast, vast;

White poplars too, sighing, sighing.
.

Harsh frost has come in the middle of the ninth month,

and you send me off in the distant countryside.

.
On all sides, there’s no one living:

just tall tombs towering, in rows.
.

So the horse lifts his head and neighs;

So the wind, alone, blows bleakly.
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The dark chamber — once it’s already closed,

in a thousand years, the dawn will not come again.
.

In a thousand years, the dawn will not come again,

and the sages, the wise — they cannot help —
.

it’s in the past. People see each other off

and each person returns home —
.

the relatives. Perhaps their sorrow stays;

but they’ve already sung for other people,
.

dead and gone now. Where gone?

Entrust the body to a fold in the mountains.