THE DARK VALLEY

Blue clouds turn into greyhounds; the gentle superior is

The lovely sun in winter, the winter tonic breaking back

The tiger in the spring. "To be absent minded and transformed" 

Thought Zhou, "the arrow from the bow that never returns,

White horses and the plain cars passing by, the haunter of

The wild." Across the silver river, he remembered the short-

Cut to officialdom, the ups and downs of an official career.

Let the producers be many and the consumers be few, Zhou

Wondered if the brisk trade extended rather to the Four Seas

Whilst rich resources flooded the Three Rivers; then gone

Like winterinsect, summer weed, down the eastward-

Flowing streams to a jewelled palace in elf-lands hills.

Zhou waited. Then, darting along an amazing pavement

Of fact, it came out of the dark valley to move into the woods.