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Page 155

[OMITTED]

107. ON ASCENDING THE SIN-PING
TOWER

An exile, I ascend this tower,
Thinking of home, and with the anguish of the waning year.
The sun has set far beyond heaven's immensity;
The unsullied waters flow on in bleak undulation.
I see a stray cloud of Chin above the mountain trees,
And the wild geese of Tartary flying over the river dunes.
Alas! for ten thousand miles under the dark blue sky
As far as my eyes can reach, there is but one vast gloom for me.
 

Both the stray cloud and the migratory birds remind the poet of his own wanderings.