<Header>
<Author: 白居易>
<Title: 聞早鶯>
<Format: 五言排律>
<Year: 1919>
<BookName: MORE TRANSLATIONS FROM THE CHINESE>
<Translator: Waley, Arthur>
<TranslatedTitle: HEARING THE EARLY ORIOLE>
<BookPage: 45-46>
<UsedPage: 2>
<Feature: 4>
<End Header>
<Poem>
日出眠未起，
屋頭聞早鶯。
忽如上林曉，
萬年枝上鳴。
憶爲近臣時，
秉筆直承明。
春深視草暇，
旦暮聞此聲。
今聞在何處，
寂莫潯陽城。
鳥聲信如一，
分別在人情。
不作天涯意，
豈殊禁中聽。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
WHEN the sun rose I was still lying in bed;
An early oriole sang on the roof of my house.
For a moment I thought of the Royal Park at dawn
When the Birds of Spring greeted their Lord from his trees.
I remembered the days when I served before the Throne
Pencil in hand, on duty at the Ch'ēng-ming;
At the height of spring, when I paused an instant from work,
Morning and evening, was this the voice I heard?
Now in my exile the oriole sings again
In the dreary stillness of Hsün-yang town...
The bird's note cannot really have changed;
All the difference lies in the listener's heart.
If he could but forget that he lives at the world's end,
The bird would sing as it sang in the Palace of old.
<End Translation>