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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell, trans.

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

On Seeing the Portrait of a Beautiful Concubine

Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell, trans.

From “Chinese Written Wall Pictures”

Ch’en Hung-Shou—Nineteenth Century

FINE rain,

Spring mud

Slippery as bean curds.

In a rose-red flash, she approaches—

Red like wine;

Tottering as though overcome with wine.

Her little feet slip on the sliding path—

Who will support her?

Clearly it is her picture

We see here,

In a rose-red silken dress,

Her hair plaited like the folds

Of the hundred clouds.

It is Manshu.