HEARING THE EARLY ORIOLE (WRITTEN IN EXILE)

The sun rose while I slept. I had not yet risen When I heard an early oriole above the roof of my house. Suddenly it was like the Royal Park at dawn, With birds calling from the branches of the ten-thousand-year trees. I thought of my time as a Court Official When I was meticulous with my pencil in the Audience Hall. At the height of Spring, in occasional moments of leisure, I would look at the grass and growing things, And at dawn and at dusk I would hear this sound. Where do I hear it now? In the lonely solitude of the City of Hsün Yang. The bird's song is certainly the same, The change is in the emotions of the man. If I could only stop thinking that I am at the ends of the earth, I wonder, would it be so different from the Palace after all?