<Header>
<Author: 李賀>
<Title: 春坊正字劍子歌>
<Format: 七言古詩>
<Year: 1947>
<BookName: THE WHITE PONY: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Newly Translated>
<Translator: Robert Payne>
<TranslatedTitle: A SWORD IN THE SPRING OFFICE>
<BookPage: 265>
<UsedPage: 1>
<Feature: 4>
<End Header>
<Poem>
先輩匣中三尺水，
曾入吳潭斬龍子。
隙月斜明刮露寒，
練帶平鋪吹不起。
蛟胎皮老蒺藜刺，
鷿鵜淬花白鷴尾。
直是荊軻一片心，
莫教照見春坊字。
挼絲團金懸𦷪梘，
神光欲截藍田玉。
提出西方白帝驚，
嗷嗷鬼母秋郊哭。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
In the ancestral chest lies a watery sword, three feet long:
Once it followed and killed a dragon in the chasm of Wu.
Like a slanting crescent moon seen from a cave, the moon shaving the chill dews,
Or like a stretched strip of satin, smooth, unruffled by the wind,
The sheath like an old dragon's skin bristling with thorns.
The blade has absorbed seabird's oil, shines like a white bird's tail,
This sword contains the whole heart of a hero.
Do not let its light be reflected on the print in the Spring Offce.
Let there be tasselled silk twists and bright metals hanging from it.
Just the heavenly light from the sword can cut jade to pieces.
When it was drawn, the White King of the West shuddered;
On the autumn pathways his ghostly mother wept at midnight.
<End Translation>