The Best Poem in Dreams of a Red Chamber
This is an edited version of David Hawkes translated poem from Dreams of the Red Chamber. I've altered it for comprehension + rhyme.
Mean hovels and abandoned halls
Where courtiers once paid daily calls:
Black haunts where weeds and willows scarcely thrive
Were once with mirth and revelry alive.
Whilst cobwebs shroud the mansion's gilded beams,
The cottage casement with choice muslin gleams.
Would you of perfumed elegance recite?
Even as you speak, the raven locks turn white.
Who yesterday her lord's bones laid in clay,
On silken bridal-bed shall lie again today.
And he who once charmed rich and poor alike with his great guile:
Now, in a trice, a tramp who all revile
One at some other's short life gives a sigh,
Not knowing that he, too, goes home to die!
The sheltered and well-educated youth,
In spite of all your care, may grow to become uncouth;
And the delicate, fastidious maid
Ends in foul stews, plying a shameful trade.
The judge whose hat is too small for his head
Wears, in the end, a convict's cangue instead!
And he who once shivering in rags bemonaed his fate,
Today finds fault with scarlet robes of state.
In such commotion does the world's theatre rage,
As each one leaves another takes the stage.
Each day, we roam
Each, in the end, must call a strange land home.
Each, with that poor girl, may compare.
Who sows a wedding gown for another bride to wear?