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Twenty five Chinese poems - Summer - A Singing Girl
Identifier
012695
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
A SINGING-GIRL
The beautiful night is hushed; it is near
to the death of the night.
A singing-girl out in the starlight, alone
at her silver screen,
Is looking in vain for the coming of one
that should give her delight.
Her golden hair-pin glitters ; her gown
is of delicate green.
She could not bear any longer to lie on
her lonely bed :
Faint is the light of her lamp, and the fire
of her brazier dead.
Nothing may comfort her now except in
the longing of love
To sing in the dark her songs that falter,
waver and weep,
Borne to the tune of a samisen daintily
fingered above,
High in the neighbouring house, by one
too happy to sleep.