Contemplating Melancholy

“A shower of leaves floats to the ground in the gentle evening rain,
while I caress vermillion strings and sing quietly to myself.
Plunged deeply in what I feel, I don’t regret not having
true companions —
cultivating essence, I vainly try to leave all waves
of suffering behind.
The sound of my elders’ carriage is clear outside my gate,
many Daoist books pile up by my pillow.
Despite my common cloth robe, eventually I will live
in the heavenly realm,
where green waters and blue mountains
pass by from time to time.”

— Yu Xuanji