<Header>
<Author: 李商隱>
<Title: 隋宮>
<Format: 七言律詩>
<Year: 1940>
<BookName: Selection from the Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty>
<Translator: Soame Jenyns>
<TranslatedTitle: The Palace of the Sui Dynasty>
<BookPage: 111-112>
<UsedPage: 2>
<Feature: 4>
<End Header>
<Poem>
紫泉宮殿鎖煙霞，
欲取蕪城作帝家。
玉璽不緣歸日角，
錦帆應是到天涯。
于今腐草無螢火，
終古垂楊有暮鴉。
地下若逢陳後主，
豈宜重問後庭花。
<End Poem>
<Translation>
THE rooms of your purple spring palace are enveloped in the mists (of the past) and have melted away;
You wished to take Wu Chêng and make it an imperial abode,
But the jade seal was not yours by rightful affinity and went to T‘ai Tsung.
Your embroidered sails might have reached to the utter-most regions of the world.
But now even the fireflies have deserted the decayed grasses (that cover your palace)
And to the last of your ancient willows only one crow comes home to roost.
If in the grave you meet the last emperor of the Chên
You will scarcely care to ask him to sing you “the flowers in the inner garden.”
<End Translation>